MASTER 

NEGA  TIVE 

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AUTHOR: 


TAYLOR,  HENRY 
OSBORN 


TITLE: 


GREEK  BIOlOGY  AND 
MEDICINE. 

PL  A CE ' 

BOSTON.MASS. 

DATE: 

[C1922] 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

t 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARGFT 


Master  Negative  # 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


88i; 
T2lii 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


'  4f  ^Hi  ■<n<h«,Mlt«vMa^ 


Taylor,  Henry  Osbom,  1856-1941. 

Oroekbiolonry  and  n.edicine,  by  Henry  Osborn  Taylor.     Bos- 
ton,  iviass.,  Marshall  Jones  company  ('1922j 

G.  aH\'J.?,ts^^.a  ^',rr:•  «I  fj>^,'°  «--  -«  «<>.«.  editors: 
"xNotes  and  bibliography"  :  p.  14.V151. 


l^Blology-Hlst.     2^  Medicine.  Greek  and  Roman.        i.  TlUe. 

23—270 


Library  of  Congress  '     ,  "  QH305.T3 


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EDITORS 

George  Depue  Hadzsits,  Ph.D. 

University  of  Pennsylvania 

David  Moore  Robinson,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

The  Johns  Hopkins  University 


^, 


CONTRIBUTORS  TO  THE  "  OUR  DEBT  TO 

GREECE   AND    ROME    FUND,"   WHOSE 

GENEROSITY  HAS  MADE  POSSIBLE 

THE  LIBRARY 


iDtxt  SDebt  to  (Sttttt  ann  TSiomt 


Philadelphia 

Dr.  Astley  p.  C.  Ashhurst 
John  C.  Bell 
Henry  H.  Bonnell 
Jasper  Yeates  Brinton 
John  Cadwalader 
Miss  Clara  Comegys 
Miss  Mary  E.  Converse 
Arthur  G.  Dickson 
William  M.  Elkins 
William  P.  Gest 
John  Gribbel 
Samuel  F.  Houston 
Alba  B.  Johnson 
Miss  Nina  Lea 
Mrs.  John  Markoe 
Jules  E.  Mastbaum 
J.  Vaughan  Merrick 
Effingham  B.  Morris 
William  R.  Murphy 
John  S.  Newbold 
S.  Davis  Page  {memorial) 
Owen  J.  Roberts 
Joseph  G.  Rosengarten 
John  B.  Stetson,  Jr. 
Dr.  J.  William  White 

(memorial) 

The  Philadelphia  Society 
for  the  Promotion  of  Liberal 
Studies. 


Boston 

Oric  Bates  {memorial) 
Frederick  P.  Fish 
William  Amory  Gardner 
Joseph  Clark  Hoppin 

Chicago 
Herbert  W.  Wolff 

Detroit 

John  W.  Anderson 
Dexter  M.  Ferry,  Jr. 

New  York 

John  Jay  Chapman 
Willard  V.  King 
Mortimer  L.  Schiff 
William  Sloane 
And    one    contributor,    who 

has  asked  to  have  his  name 

withheld: 

Maecenas  atavis  edite  regibus, 
0  et  praesidium  et  dtdce  decus 
meum. 

Washington 

The  Greek  Embassy  at 
Washington,  for  the  Greek 
Government. 


tii] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY 
AND    MEDICINE 


BY 


HENRY  OS  BORN  TAYLOR 


MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 

BOSTON  •  MASSACHUSETTS 


n 

t 

! 


COPYRIGHT-I92  2-BY    MARSHALL  JONES    COMPANY 


Copyright,  Great  Britain 


All  rights  reserved 


Printed  November,  1922 


ra)4- 


y 


To 

THE  NOBLE  PROFESSION:  WHOSE  GOSPEL 
IS  THE  HEALING  OF  MANKIND!  WHOSE 
HONOR  IS   THE   HIPPOCRATIC   OATH 


4 


{ 
« 


THE   PLIMPTON   PR  E  S  S  •  N  OR  W  0  OD  •  M  A  S  S  A  CHUS  ETTS 
PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF   AMERICA 


EDITORS'  PREFACE 


1 


MANY  READERS  will  find  in  the 
pages  of  Doctor  Taylor  a  revelation 
in  the  amazing  advance  made  by 
Greek  Biology  and  Medicine  and  in  the  extent 
of  our  indebtedness  to  Hippocrates,  Aristotle 
and  Galen.  The  subject  is  one  not  so  well 
known  as  some  other  aspects  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  civilizations.  We  are  apt  to  think  of 
magic  and  superstition  in  the  medical  practice 
of  the  ancients,  in  spite  of  our  Celsus  and  the 
oracular  Pliny.  The  specialist  may  have  fol- 
lowed the  expositions  of  Sir  William  Osier, 
Dr.  Charles  Singer,  Sir  Clifford  Allbutt  and 
Dr.  Arthur  J.  Brock,  but  this  book  is  addressed 
to  the  layman.  It  is  our  hope  that  a  wider 
and  deeper  interest  will  result  in  the  achieve- 
ments of  those  Greeks  who  laid  the  founda- 
tions, permanent  and  secure,  for  the  sciences 
of  Biology  and  Medicine. 

The  history  of  the  influence  of  the  Greek 
biologists  and  medical  men  still  remains  to  be 
written,  but  it  will  be  a  fascinating  chapter  in 

[vii] 


editors'   preface 


the  history  of  human  culture.    When  the  time 
arrives,  we  shall  have  a  record  of  fanatic  de- 
votion, of  literal  and  uninspired  acceptance, 
of  forgetfulness,  of  an  inspiring  rediscovery 
with  a  quickening  of  scientific  interest,  of  direct 
observation   of  Nature's  phenomena,  with   a 
consequent  skepticism  toward  ancient  dogma, 
and  of  a  final  great  scientific  revival  which  has 
resulted  in  a  recognition  of  the  true  worth  of 
the  ancients.     Through  the  mazes  of  Arabic 
civilization,  over  the  collapse  of  the  religious 
medieval   period   and   the   pride   of   the   Re- 
naissance, through  the  fourteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,  the  great  ancients  have  come  to  us. 
It  is  largely  through  their  inspiration  that  we 
have  learned  our  independent  pursuit  of  Na- 
ture's mysteries  in  the  courageous  Greek  spirit 
of  love  of  truth,  reason  and  freedom.    Doubt- 
less in  the  field  of  medicine,  this  has  carried 
with   it   a   certain   emancipation,    as    Gilbert 
Murray  has  said,  from  the  dead  hand  of  the 
past,  but  it  is  an  emancipation  from  the  errors 
of  the  past  alone.     The  twentieth  century  is 
gradually  approaching  a  true  appraisal  of  the 
values  of  the  ancient  medicine  and  biology, 
so  eloquently  expressed  years  ago  in  Darwin's 
gracious  phrase. 

[  viii  ] 


editors'   preface 

Dr.  Taylor's  volume  on  "  Greek  Biology  and 
Medicine  "  is  the  third  to  appear  in  the  new 
Library,  "  Our  Debt  to  Greece  and  Rome." 
The  author  has  drawn  his  sketch  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  clear  the  influence  of  ancient 
biological  and  medical  theories  and  of  the 
ancient  medical  practice  upon  our  intellectual 
life,  to-day,  giving  frequent  allusions  to  that 
influence  as  it  affected  distinguished  biologists 
and  men  of  medicine  during  the  intervening 
centuries.  This  is  part  of  the  larger  plan  of 
the  Library  as  a  whole  to  show  in  some  detail 
the  vitality  of  the  ancient  thought  and  to 
make  more  articulate  the  significance  it  pos- 
sesses for  us.  We  all  too  unconsciously  ac- 
cept a  heritage  —  scientific,  intellectual,  spir- 
itual—  which  lies  at  the  very  core  of  our 
being  and  is  the  real  hope  of  an  orderly  future. 

This  book  takes  no  formal  account  of  the 
famous  Pompeian  medical  instruments,  and 
only  further  study  of  the  Ebers  papyrus  and 
in  particular  of  the  Edwin  Smith  papyrus  may 
lead  to  a  new  estimate  of  the  progress  of 
medicine  in  ancient  Egypt;  but  we  are  not  yet 
in  a  position  to  estimate  the  truth  contained 
in  these  venerable  documents.  And,  for  us, 
Greece  still  stands  as  the  pioneer  in  a  science 

[ix] 


editors'   preface 

which  will  progress  to  its  greatest  victories  as 
it  is  quickened  with  the  nobility  of  spirit  that 
touched  the  heart  and  mind  of  Hippocrates. 
His  words  find  an  eloquent  echo  in  the  lines  of 
Goethe: 

Ach  Gott!  die  Kunst  ist  lang 
Und  kurz  ist  unser  Leben, 

which  are  an  immortal  commentary  on  the 
inner  essence  of  the  Greek's  aspiration. 


I 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Contributors  to  the  Fund    .     .  ii 

Editors'  Preface vii 

Author's  Preface xiii 

I.    The  Early  Biology       ....  3 
n.    The  Hippocratics      .....  12 
HI.    Aristotle's  Biology       ....  40 
IV.    Progress  in  Anatomy  and  Medi- 
cine      84 

V.    The  Final  System:    Galen    .     .  98 
VI.    The  Linkage  with  the  Modern 

Time 124 

Outline  of  Influence  of  Greek 

Biology  and  Medicine  .     .     .  i39 

Notes  and  Bibliography     .     .     .  153 


[X] 


[xi] 


PREFACE 


<l 


THE  OBJECT  of  this  little  monograph 
is  to  indicate  the  debt  of  the  modern 
world  to  the  ancient  biology  and 
medicine.  One  might  as  well  say  simply  Greek 
biology  and  medicine,  since  whether  pursued 
or  practiced  in  Ionia,  in  Attica,  or  in  Rome, 
the  biology  and  medicine  worthy  of  our  atten- 
tion were  Greek  in  their  origin  and  progress, 
and  owed  little  to  the  Romans.  The  scientific 
spirit  was  an  endowment  of  Hellas,  and  alien 
from  the  genius  of  Rome;  nor  did  the  Romans 
capture  much  of  it  from  the  gifted  race  whom 
they  subdued  politically,  and  by  whose  art  and 
literature  they  were  captivated  in  turn. 

The  task  before  us  might  make  the  labor 
of  a  lifetime  for  any  writer,  and  the  resulting 
volume  would  inevitably  lead  the  reader  into 
long  winding  avenues.  I  offer  but  a  sketch,  a 
slight  sketch  as  it  were,  of  Greek  biology  and 
medicine.  I  have  endeavored  to  draw  it  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  clear  the  nature  of  their 
influence  upon  our  intellectual  life  today.    So 

[xiii] 


PREFACE 

we  gain  a  useful  point  of  view  from  which  to 
consider  the  pregnant  thoughts  and  researches 
of  the  Greeks  regarding  the  nature  of  animals 
and  plants,  and  their  wise  practice  of  the  heal- 
ing art.  We  may  profit  by  the  spirit  in 
which  they  made  their  investigations  and 
applied  a  system  of  therapeutics,  scientifically 
based. 

Our  correlated  modern  sciences  which  are 
called  biological  because  they  treat  of  living 
organisms,  have  pushed  their  researches  and 
discoveries  far  beyond  the  achievements  of  the 
Greeks.  They  are  not  a  graft  upon  a  Greek 
stem:  they  have  arisen  through  the  direct 
study  of  nature,  not  from  the  old  Greek  books. 
Thus  they  have  shown  a  Greek  spirit.  It  is  in 
this  modern  renewal  of  a  scientific  mind,  rather 
than  in  any  specific  borrowings  from  the 
ancient  stock,  that  we  should  seek  to  recognize 
what  Greece  has  been  and  still  may  be  for  us. 

So  with  medicine.  The  reign  of  Galen  ended 
some  centuries  ago.  But  modern  medicine,  in 
spite  of  its  vastly  increased  knowledge,  has 
never  ceased  to  hark  back,  and  often  very  con- 
sciously, to  the  principles  of  Hippocrates. 
With  a  larger  knowledge  than  his  own,  it 
rightly  reverences  the  great  Greek,  and  treads 

[xiv] 


PREFACE 

Still  in  his  footsteps.  Therefore  in  considering 
our  debt  to  Greek  medicine  I  shall  look  to  the 
HIppocratic  method,  rather  than  to  specific 
points  of  practice,  referring  to  these  more  by 
way  of  illustration. 

I  have  to  thank  my  friend.  Dr.  Frederic  S. 
Lee,  Research  Professor  of  Physiology  in 
Columbia  University,  for  his  valuable  sugges- 
tions upon  reading  my  manuscript;  also  the 
New  York  Academy  of  Medicine  for  the  privi- 
leges of  its  great  medical  library  courteously 
extended.  My  friend,  Professor  Heidel  of 
Wesleyan  University  has  aided  me  throughout 
my  work  with  books  and  counsel,  and  has  had 
the  kindness  to  read  my  proof  and  advise  with 
me  regarding  it.  His  eminence  in  the  field  of 
Hippocratic  studies  and  early  Greek  philoso- 
phy is  known  to  all  scholars.  The  italics  in  the 
text  are  due  to  Professor  Hadzsits,  one  of  the 
Editors  in  this  series,  who  is  also  responsible 
for  the  "  Outline,  briefly  showing  the  influence 
of  Greek  Biology  and  Medicine,"  printed  as 
an  Appendix  to  this  volume. 


Henry  Osborn  Taylor 


New  York, 
October,  1922. 


[XV] 


f 

4 


GREEK  BIOLOGY  AND  MEDICINE 


I 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND 
MEDICINE 


'f 


I.    THE    EARLY    BIOLOGY 

BEYOND  all  other  ancient  people,  the 
better  sort  of  men  among  the  dwellers 
in  the  Ionian  cities  on  the  west  coast 
01  Asia  Minor  and  the  neighboring  islands  were 
blessed  with  lively  intellectual  curiosity.  They 
wer€  also  free,  and  meant  to  keep  their  free- 
dom. Their  cities  might  for  a  time  be  brought 
within  the  sway  of  a  Lydian  monarch  or  the 
Great  King  of  Persia;  but  such  intermittent 
pressure  from  without  did  not  hamper  the  com- 
merce of  these  coast  and  island  towns,  or  re- 
strict the  free  thinking  of  their  citizens. 
Religion  was  tolerant  or  uncertain;  there  was 
no  constraining  caste  of  priests.  Men  might 
think  as  they  saw  fit  upon  the  origin  and  order 
of  the  world,  and  freely  express  their  opinions. 
And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  gifted  thought- 
leaders  of  Ionian  Greece  devised  conceptions  of 

[3] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND    MEDICINE 


the  world,  the  impress  of  which  has  never  been 
expunged  from  human  thinking. 

The  old  Ionian  speculation  upon  Nature  or 
(t>v(TLS  was  curious  as  to  the  material  of  the 
world,  and  considered  how  its  visible  compo- 
nent rocks  and  earth  and  waters  came  to  be. 
This  speculation,  supplemented  by  investiga- 
tion, was  directed  also  to  the  origins  of  plants 
and  animals,  to  the  manner  of  their  growth 
and  to  their  living  structure.  Accordingly, 
the  (t>vaLo\oyia^  which  is  to  say  the  natural 
history  or  philosophy,  of  these  physicists,  in- 
cluded the  beginnings  of  biology,  which  is  the 
science  of  all  living  things,  if  we  use  this  com- 
paratively modern  word  in  its  most  compre- 
hensive sense. 

There  is  no  need  to  re-state  the  physical 
theories  of  the  early  Ionian  philosophers  and 
of  their  compeers  who  were  Greeks  even  when 
not  so  evidently  lonians.  It  is  more  to  our 
purpose  to  remark  that  for  us  Greek  biology 
begins  in  some  extraordinary  fragments 
ascribed  to  the  great  Milesian  Anaximander, 
who  was  a  younger  friend  of  Thales  and  lived 
through  the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century  be- 
fore Christ.    They  are  as  follows: 

"  Living  creatures  arose  from  the  moist  ele- 

[4] 


THE     EARLY     BIOLOGY 

ment  as  it  was  evaporated  by  the  sun.  Man 
was  like  another  animal,  namely,  a  fish,  in  the 
beginning. 

"  The  first  animals  were  produced  in  the 
moisture,  each  enclosed  in  a  prickly  bark.  As 
they  advanced  in  age,  they  came  out  upon  the 
drier  part.  When  the  bark  broke  off,  they 
survived  for  a  short  time. 

*'  Further,  he  says  that  originally  man  was 
born  from  animals  of  another  species.  His 
reason  is  that  while  other  animals  quickly  find 
food  by  themselves,  man  alone  requires  a 
lengthy  period  of  suckling.  Hence,  had  he 
been  originally  as  he  is  now,  he  would  never 
have  survived. 

"  He  declares  that  at  first  human  beings 
arose  in  the  inside  of  fishes,  and  after  having 
been  reared  like  sharks,  and  become  capable 
of  protecting  themselves,  they  were  finally  cast 
ashore  and  took  to  land."  ^ 

We  may  puzzle  ourselves  and  find  much  or 
little  in  these  syncopated  fragments.  They  do 
not  disclose  the  manner  of  Anaximander's  in- 
vestigations, but  represent  his  conclusions, 
which  were  drawn  from  his  study  of  nature. 
They  stand  for  his  explanations  of  the  visible 
facts,  his  accounting   for  phenomena.     This 

[5] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 


dawning  biology,  like  the  cosmological  physics 
of  which  it  appears  as  part,  was  free  from 
superstitious  fear;  it  admitted  no  magic,  recog- 
nized no  supernatural;  it  had  little  religious 
awe.  Such  unembarrassed  observation  of  na- 
ture, such  free  and  rational  conclusions,  were 
unique  in  the  world;  and  unique  the  consequent 
endeavor  to  build  up  a  systematic  body  of  nat- 
ural knowledge,  with  accordant  hypotheses,  or 
explanations,  which  should  rationally  account 
for  the  world  in  which  man  lived.  Even  with 
the  Greeks  these  intellectual  aims  were  not  to 
become  common.  And  as  such  an  observa- 
tion of  nature  was  then  utterly  unknown  in 
Babylonia  or  Egypt  or  anywhere  else  on  earth, 
so  outside  of  the  elect  of  the  Greek  race  and  a 
very  few  others  who  imbibed  their  spirit,  it  was 
never  accepted  by  the  ancient  world. 

And  here  at  once  be  it  said  that,  taking  full 
account  of  the  admirable  Greek  achievements 
in  biology  and  medicine,  our  modern  indebted- 
ness is  less  for  their  substance  than  for  the 
clear  spirit  of  scientific  investigation  which  was 
one  of  the  immortal  legacies  of  Greece,  how- 
ever few  the  men  or  periods  that  could  accept 
it.  In  medicine,  in  surgery,  in  every  field  of 
science,   modern   investigation   has   advanced 

[6] 


THE    EARLY    BIOLOGY 

very  far  beyond  the  Greeks.  It  has  not,  how- 
ever, altogether  improved  upon  their  spirit, 
although  in  practice  it  has  brought  the  habit  of 
careful  and  toilsome  verification  which  was  not 
theirs.  Yet  the  methods  of  modern  medicine 
have  ever  and  anon  been  fain  to  hark  back  to 
the  broad  wisdom  of  Hippocrates;  and  as  for 
the  genius  and  accomplishment  of  Aristotle  in 
biology,  why,  he  will  reappear  as  Harvey's  god 
and  Darwin's  admiration.^ 

After  Anaximander,  other  natural  philoso- 
phers thought  much  upon  the  origin  of  plants 
and  animals.  Biological  considerations  and 
medical  doctrines  appear  in  the  fragments  of 
the  early  philosophers  and  fill  out  the  tradi- 
tions of  their  lives,  —  with  Anaxagoras,  in  his 
recognition  of  the  differences  between  living 
organisms  and  inanimate  objects,  with  Emped- 
ocles,  presumably  an  important  figure  in  the 
history  of  medicine,  with  Democritus,  a  dis- 
sector and  penetrating  investigator,  of  whom 
Aristotle  said  that  no  one  had  so  profoundly 
considered  growth  and  change. 

Can  we  discover  a  general  purpose  in  their 
investigations  and  reflections?  Possibly,  —  by 
a  moderate  use  of  constructive  interpretation. 
They  were  searching  for  the  source  and  cause 

[7] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

of  living  things:  pondering  upon  the  first  in- 
choate material  of  them,  and  the  moving 
influences  of  warmth  and  moisture;  then  con- 
sidering the  reasons  and  manner  of  their  growth 
and  sustenance,  noting  the  features  of  their 
structure.  In  the  Homeric  Epics,  the  fortunes 
and  fatalities  of  men  and  beasts  were  fre- 
quently determined  by  the  arbitrary  will  and 
action  of  the  gods.  Such  a  pantheon  could 
have  no  place  in  the  minds  of  men  searching 
for  a  plastic  source  and  for  operative  causes 
which  should  be  constant  and  regular,  depend- 
able and  even  predictable,  in  their  action. 
With  these  men  ''  the  conception  of  Nature 
replaced  that  of  the  gods  as  a  basis  of  explana- 
tion, </)6(rts  was  conceived  as  the  source  of  the 
manifold  activities  of  the  world."  ^ 

These  early  philosophers,  Pre-Socratics,  as 
they  are  called,  had  not  analyzed  causation 
or  distinguished  one  manner  of  cause  from 
another.  That  was  left  for  Aristotle.  They 
had  no  distinct  conception  of  final  causes  or 
the  purposeful  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 
*' Lucky  for  them!"  many  of  us  moderns 
might  remark.  Nevertheless,  to  them.  Nature, 
the  source  of  things  if  one  will,  seemed  to  con- 
tain the  moving  principles  which  issued  in  the 

[8] 


I 


THE     EARLY     BIOLOGY 

world  of  plants  and  animals,  and  ruled  within 
or  over  them.  These  initial  and  controlling 
forces  might  be  conceived  as  utterly  mechan- 
ical, as  in  the  later  Atomic  theory  of  Democ- 
ritus.  Yet  some  of  the  early  Greeks,  observ- 
ing the  obvious  conformity  of  means  to  ends,  at 
least  in  animals,  could  not  rest  in  the  thought 
of  Nature  as  merely  mechanical  and  without 
purpose  in  its  operation.  Besides,  plants  and 
animals  were  alive,  and  life  could  not  really 
be  explained  in  terms  of  weight  and  impetus. 
Since  Nature  was  the  source  and  fashioner  of 
living  beings,  Nature  itself,  or  herself,  might 
in  the  end  be  thought  of  as  alive.  The  con- 
crete, vital,  form-and-life-giving  character  of 
Greek  thinking  could  hardly  keep  from  vital- 
izing its  concept  of  the  great  source  and 
mother  of  living  things.  Heraclitus  had  already 
said  that  *'  Nature  loves  to  hide,"  or  "  play  at 
hide-and-seek."  When  has  she  not  been  found 
the  cleverest  of  players  at  this  game? 

So  the  early  and  the  later  Greeks  touched 
delicately  on  the  living  vitality  and  possibly 
vague  personality  of  Nature.  If  divine.  Nature 
was  pantheistically  so,  and  never  to  be  moulded 
to  the  sharp  personality  of  an  Homeric  Zeus 
or  Apollo  or  Athena. 

[9] 


.1 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

There  exist  but  fragments  of  the  Pre-Socrat- 
ics,  and  Xenophon's  Memoirs  of  Socrates 
contain  scant  notice  of  biology  or  physics. 
Recently  it  has  been  recognized  that  a  mine 
of  suggestion,  if  not  information,  as  to  the 
early  Greek  thoughts  upon  the  working  of 
Nature  in  living  organisms  is  to  be  found  in 
that  large  and  most  significant  body  of  medi- 
cal and  even  biological  literature  which  trails 
the  authorship  of  Hippocrates.  He  was  Soc- 
rates' contemporary;  and  although  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  prove  his  authorship  of  any  one  of  these 
treatises,  a  goodly  part  are  from  the  fifth 
century,  when  he  lived,  and  are  convincingly 
associated  with  the  great  physician  to  whom 
they  are  ascribed.  Other  portions  of  the 
Hippocratic  corpus  are  affected  by  the  theories 
of  the  natural  philosophers,  and  reflect  con- 
temporary conceptions  of  Nature. 

For  example:  "  Hippocrates  speaks  of 
Nature  as  arranging  the  vitals  in  the  inner 
parts;  says  of  the  auricles  of  the  heart  that 
they  are  instruments  by  which  she  takes  in  the 
air,  adding  that  they  seem  to  be  the  handiwork 
of  a  good  craftsman;  refers  to  the  vis  medica- 
trix  naturae,  Nature  having  discovered  the 
methods  without  understanding  and  untaught; 

[10] 


i  \ 


THE     EARLY     BIOLOGY 

she  makes  glands  and  hair;  she  (as  the  stu- 
dent's natural  aptitude  or  inaptitude)  can 
prepare  the  way  for  and  offer  resistance  to  in- 
struction; she  is  all-sufficient;  she  produces 
natural  species  and  legislates  language;  in  dis- 
ease she  may  withhold  signs,  but  may  be  con- 
strained by  art  to  yield  them;  the  means  em- 
ployed by  her  are  likened  to  the  means  in  use 
in  the  arts."  * 

One  of  the  Hippocratic  treatises,  probably 
dating  from  the  close  of  the  fifth  century, 
gives  much  zoological  information,  and  even 
suggests  something  like  a  classification  of 
animals  and  plants.  Another,  somewhat  later 
in  date,  discusses  with  great  intelligence  the 
generation  of  animals  and  plants.  It  is  a 
worthy  predecessor  of  Aristotle's  works  upon 
these  matters.^ 


M 


["] 


f  \ 


4 


n.    THE   HIPPOCRATICS 

GREEK  MEDICINE,  with  surgery, 
was  an  art,  the  healing  art,  ia  ptKrj 
Texvrj.  Through  its  ministrations 
men  and  women,  the  highest  order  of  living 
beings,  were  healed  of  their  wounds  or,  when 
sick,  restored  to  health.  Such  was  medicine 
in  its  broad  Hippocratic  foundations,  which 
consciously  rested  upon  still  more  ancient 
medical  experience.  But  since  the  doctors 
were  thinking  men  and  also  Greeks,  they 
sought  to  know  the  causes  of  sickness;  some 
of  them  speculated  on  the  nature  of  man  and 
invented  hypotheses  of  disease.  So  medicine 
inclined  to  theory,  besides  relying  on  the  re- 
sults of  observation  of  the  sick;  it  tended  to 
become  a  science  as  well  as  an  art.  Members 
of  the  healing  craft  studied  anatomy  and 
physiology  (in  the  modern  sense),  which  are 
biological  sciences.  Indeed  so  far  as  medicine 
became  science  as  well  as  art,  it  falls  within 
the  province  of  biology. 
Greek  medicine  and  natural  philosophy  or 

[12] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

science  were  to  progress  and  retrograde  to- 
gether. I  refer  to  the  true  Greek  medical 
tradition;  for  there  were  quacks  in  Greece, 
as  there  have  been  ever  since;  today  people 
still  troop  after  them.  But  in  speaking  of  our 
debt  to  Greece  in  medicine,  we  have  in  mind 
the  broad  currents  of  good  practice  and  in- 
creasing knowledge  which  flow  full  in  the  Hip- 
pocratic writings,  continue  on  through  the  great 
physicians  and  anatomists  of  Alexandria,  and 
spread  themselves  abroad  over  the  Roman 
Empire  until,  six  hundred  years  after  Hippoc- 
rates, they  are  brought  together  in  the  ample 
system  of  Galen.  It  is  convenient  to  proceed 
chronologically  in  this  little  attempt  to  follow 
the  interrelations  of  Greek  biology  and 
medicine. 

The  almost  consciously  schematic  and  in- 
troductory tract  On  Ancient  Medicine  is 
usually  placed  first  in  the  Hippocratic  writings.^ 
As  its  name  implies,  and  its  contents  make 
clear,  it  sets  forth  no  novel  system,  but  bases 
its  argument  upon  the  experience  and  clinical 
observation  of  generations.  Like  other  writings 
of  the  master,  or  his  immediate  school,  it  will 
steer  a  safe  course  between  a  crude  and  hap- 
hazard empiricism  and  distorting  the  teach- 

[13] 


) 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

ings  of  rationalized  experience  into  agreement 
with  hypotheses  touching  the  nature  and  dis- 
eases of  man  or  the  things  of  heaven  and 
earth. 

Thus  the  tract  opens:  "There  are  those 
who  have  essayed  to  speak  or  write  concerning 
medicine,  basing  their  argument  on  the  hot  or 
cold,  on  the  moist  or  the  dry  or  anything  else 
they  choose,  reducing  the  causes  of  human  dis- 
eases and  death  to  a  minimum,  one  and  the 
same  for  all,  basing  their  argument  on  one  or 
two  [such  causes] ;  but  in  many  of  the  novel- 
ties they  utter  they  are  clearly  in  the  wrong. 
This  is  the  more  blameworthy,  because  they 
err  touching  an  actual  art  which  all  men  em- 
ploy in  the  greatest  emergencies  and  in  which 
they  honor  most  the  skillful  practitioners. 
Now  there  are  practitioners,  some  bad,  some 
excellent;  which  would  not  be  true  if  medicine 
were  not  actually  an  art,  and  no  observations 
or  discoveries  had  been  made  in  it.  All  would 
be  equally  unskilled  and  ignorant  of  it,  and 
the  cure  of  diseases  would  be  wholly  subject 
to  chance.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  so; 
but,  as  artisans  in  all  other  arts  excel  one  the 
other  in  handicraft  and  knowledge,  so  also  in 
medicine."    Therefore  I  maintained  that  it  had 

[14] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

no  need  of  vain  hypotheses,  as  is  the  case  in 
matters  inaccessible  to  sense  and  open  to  doubt. 
Concerning  these,  if  one  essay  to  speak,  one 
must  resort  to  hypothesis.  So,  if  one  should 
speak  and  entertain  an  opinion  touching  things 
in  the  heavens  or  under  the  earth,  it  would  be 
clear  neither  to  the  speaker  nor  to  those  who 
heard  him  whether  his  opinion  was  true  or 
false;  for  there  is  no  appeal  to  aught  that  can 
establish  the  truth."  ® 

The  tract  proceeds  to  show  that  the  art  of 
medicine  has  grown  through  observation  of  the 
needs  and  diseases  of  men,  —  not  through 
the  acceptance  of  some  hypothesis  as  to  their 
cause.^  For  example,  the  regulation  of  the 
patient's  diet,  espjeclally  in  acute  illness,  was 
fundamental  in  Hippocratic  medicine.  And  the 
tract  argues  that  no  improvement  in  diet,  even 
for  people  in  health,  could  have  come  about 
except  through  observation  of  the  ill  effects  of 
unsuitable  food.  Much  more,  then,  has  long 
clinical  experience  shown  the  need  to  modify 
the  regimen  of  a  patient  suffering  from  a  fever. 
Indeed  nothing  has  so  promoted  the  art  of 
medicine  as  observing  how  the  food  for  a 
healthy  man  injures  the  sick,  and  the  conse- 
quent endeavor  to  regulate  the  patient's  regi- 

[15] 


I 


*¥%■■   ' 


1^' 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

men  and  discover  the  form  and  amount  of 
nourishment  suitable  to  a  constitution  weak- 
ened through  disease. 

The  obvious  fact  that  some  forms  of  food 
will  make  a  well  person  sick  tells  against  those 
who  imagine  that  disease  is  produced  by  an 
excess  of  warmth  or  cold,  of  dryness  or  mois- 
ture. "  For  if  hot,  or  cold,  or  moist,  or  dry, 
be  that  which  proves  injurious  to  man,  and  if 
the  person  who  would  treat  him  properly  must 
apply  cold  to  the  hot,  hot  to  the  cold,  moist  to 
the  dry,  and  dry  to  the  moist  —  then  let  a  man 
eat  wheat  raw  from  the  threshing  floor,  and 
raw  meat,  and  drink  water  with  it.'^  By  using 
such  a  diet  I  know  that  he  will  suffer  severely; 
for  he  will  experience  pains,  his  body  will  be- 
come weak  and  his  bowels  deranged,  and  he 
will  not  live  long.  What  remedy  then  should 
be  provided  him?  Hot,  or  cold?  or  moist?  or 
dry?  For,  according  to  the  hypothesis,  it  must 
be  one  of  these  that  is  injuring  the  patient, 
and  must  be  removed  by  its  contrary.  But  the 
surest  and  most  obvious  way  is  to  change  his 
diet,  give  bread  instead  of  wheat,  boiled  flesh 
in  the  place  of  raw,  and  a  little  wine."  ^^ 

Having  ridiculed  and  disproved  such  hypo- 
theses in  their  application  to   medicine,   the 

[i6] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

writer  passes  on  to  question  the  usefulness  of 
other  philosophic  theories  for  the  medical  prac- 
titioner: "  Certain  physicians  and  philosophers 
assert  that  one  cannot  know  medicine  without 
knowing  what  man  is,  how  he  originally  came 
into  existence  and  of  what  substances  he  was 
compounded  in  the  beginning.  .  .  .  Now  the 
contention  of  these  men  really  looks  to  phi- 
losophy, as  do  Empedocles  and  others  who 
have  written  concerning  nature  (irepl  ^vaeois). 
As  for  me,  I  consider  that  what  a  philosopher 
or  physician  has  said  or  written  of  Nature  has 
less  relevancy  to  medicine  than  to  painting; 
and  I  am  of  opinion  that,  so  far  as  concerns 
knowledge  of  Nature,  one  can  know  nothing 
definite  about  it  except  from  medicine;   but 
this  may  be  thoroughly  learned,  when  men  go 
about  it  rightly.    Hitherto,  it  seems  to  me,  we 
are  far  from  it:  far,  that  is  to  say,  from  having 
a  scientific  knowledge  of  what  man  is  (that 
is  to  say,  what  his  constitution  is)  and  to  what 
cause  he  owes  his  origin  and  the  rest,  in  any 
exact  sense.    Now  so  much  at  least  it  is  indis- 
pensable that  the  physician  should  know  con- 
cerning  Nature   and   should   greatly   concern 
himself  to  know,  if  he  is  to  do  any  part  of  his 
duty;   to  wit,  what  a  man  is   (i.e.  what  his 

[17] 


i 


f| 

'  I: 

i 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

constitution  is),  relative  to  meat  and  drink, 
and  what  he  is  relative  to  the  rest  of  his  mode 
of  life,  and  what  results  follow  for  the  indi- 
vidual from  particular  things,  and  all  this  not 
merely  in  general  terms,  as  e.g.,  '  cheese  is  un- 
wholesome food,  for  it  distresses  one  who  eats 
plentifully  of  it';  but  what  particular  distress 
it  causes,  and  for  what  reason,  and  to  what  in- 
gredient of  the  man's  constitution  it  is  un- 
suitable." ^- 

The  writer  points  to  the  physician's  need  to 
consider  this  question  closely.    Each  individual 
is  peculiarly  constituted,  and  cheese  will  be 
injurious  or  strengthening  as  it  may  or  may 
not  suit   his   constitution.     Here   the   writer 
tacitly  accepts  the  Hippocratic  conception  of 
the   four  humors   representing   the   four  ele- 
mental qualities  of  every  human  body:    the 
blood  contains  the  warm-moist  quality;  yellow 
bile,  the  warm-dry;  black  bile,  the  cold-dry; 
and  phlegm  (formed  in  the  brain),  the  cold- 
moist.     Although  these  humors  do  not  exist 
in  the  same  proportions  in  every  individual, 
nevertheless  each  person's  health  depends  upon 
their  due  relations  and  blending,  while  an  ab- 
normal preponderance  or  accumulation  of  any 
one  of  them  produces  disease.     Though  the 

[i8] 


THE    HIPPOCRATICS 

disturbance  display  itself  only  in  one  spot, 
general  symptoms  of  illness  will  follow.  It  is 
food  that  furnishes  the  material  from  which 
these  humors,  or  cardinal  fluids,  renew  them- 
selves. 

This  conception  of  the  humors  and  the 
effects  of  their  disturbance  was  the  chief  pillar 
of  the  medical  temple  for  the  next  two  thou- 
sand years,  and  became  part  of  the  current 
speech  of  European  peoples.  Although  not 
universally  accepted  in  Greek  medicine,  it 
received  the  authoritative  approval  of  Galen 
and  then  of  Avicenna,  the  Arabian  physician 
and  philosopher  of  the  eleventh  century;  and 
no  one  stood  out  against  them  until  the  pro- 
digious Paracelsus,  than  whom  no  man  was  ever 
more  vociferously  dubbed  quack  and  charlatan 
by  his  own  as  well  as  later  times. 

Strictly  taken,  the  theory  of  the  four  humors 
was  as  baseless  as  Paracelsus  said  it  was;  yet 
the  conception  of  functional  coordination 
among  the  human  organs  and  of  the  general 
disturbance  resulting  from  the  sickness  of  any 
one  of  them,  has  never  been  discarded.  Hip- 
pocrates viewed  the  body  as  a  whole  and  had 
observed  that  the  sickness  of  a  part  m'ght  dis- 
order or  sicken  the  rest.    This  might  be  under- 

[19] 


i 


li 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

Stood  by  means  of  the  four  humors,  which 
seemed  to  Hippocrates  the  nearest  explanation 
of  the  observed  phenomena. 

Thus  a  certain  amount  of  hypothesis  entered 
the  Hippocratic  healing  art;  —  as  it  necessarily 
makes  part  of  every  art  as  well  as  every  science. 
But  Hippocrates  at  least  economized  in  hy- 
pothesis as  few  men  after  him,  and  very  con- 
sciously. For  he  was  an  acute  Ionian  Greek, 
and  the  need  to  seek  and  formulate  explana- 
tions, that  is,  hypotheses,  comes  with  great 
urgency  to  every  intelligent  and  inquiring  mind. 
Babylonians  and  Egyptians,  who  were  prac- 
tical, but  not  intellectually  curious,  were  not 
beset  with  any  like  cravings.  And  indeed  the 
history  of  Greek,  as  well  as  modern,  medicine 
will  illustrate  this  competitive  endeavor  of  the 
intellectual  mind  to  keep  its  explanations 
abreast  of  observation;  — indeed  explanations, 
hypotheses,  in  the  endeavor  to  keep  abreast, 
to  account  for  phenomena,  save  the  appearances 
(ac^^eLP  Ttt  (t>aiv6}j.eva,  a  Platonic  phrase),  will 
constantly  go  beyond  them,  and  so  astray.  All 
progressive  physical  science,  and  medicine 
striving  ever  to  become  a  science,  exhibit  this 
struggle  of  hypothesis  to  account  for  observa- 
tion.   And  doubtless  the  more  modest  working 

[20] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

hypotheses,  which  the  true  scientist  or  the  good 
physician  holds  himself  in  readiness  to  abandon, 
are  the  most  serviceable  and  least  fatal. 

We  return  to  our  illustrations  of  Hippoc- 
rates. Very  typical  is  the  treatment  of  the 
patient's  regimen.  Its  method  and  humane 
wisdom  are  shown  in  the  tract  On  Regimen  in 
Acute  Diseases.  It  opens  somewhat  warmly 
in  a  polemic  against  the  Cnidian  school  for 
their  fine-spun  diagnoses  and  meticulous  dis- 
tinctions between  diseases,  which  went  beyond 
their  knowledge  of  the  course  and  nature  of 
disease  and  far  beyond  their  too  restricted 
remedies.  Not  every  variation  of  symptom 
means  a  different  disease;  and  the  Cnidians 
fail  to  consider  those  profounder  indications 
of  which  the  patient  is  not  aware,  but  the 
physician  must  discern  and  understand  if  he 
would  foresee  the  course  and  crisis  of  the  sick- 
ness with  which  he  must  cope.  Diet  is  most 
important  in  acute  diseases,  and  has  not  been 
sufficiently  determined;  its  effect  upon  the  sick 
must  be  carefully  considered  and  compared. 
The  tract  proceeds  to  do  this  specifically  and 
most  wisely;  comparing,  for  instance,  the  re- 
sults obtained  from  a  diet  of  barley  broth  with 
those  from  strained  barley  water,  and  discuss- 

[21] 


\ 


1 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

ing  whether  the  patient  should  have  been  pre- 
viously purged.  Attention  is  to  be  paid  to  the 
stages  of  the  disease  and  the  condition  of  the 
patient,  and  regard  should  be  had  to  his  usual 
habit  of  taking  food,  whether  once  a  day  or 
twice  (sic).  The  physician  must  be  cautious 
in  changing  the  diet  or  increasing  it  when  the 
disease  takes  a  favorable  turn.  Greek  physi- 
cians had  constantly  to  treat  pleurisies  and 
pneumonias  and  enteric  fevers;  and  one  may 
question  whether  modern  medical  writing  has 
anything  wiser  to  say  as  to  diet  in  such  cases 
than  this  Hippocratic  tract. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  recount  the  details 
of  Hippocratic  practice,  but  rather  to  illustrate 
its  principles,  its  penetrating  observation,  its 
fine  and  broad  intelligence,  its  humane  wisdom. 
Never  was  a  practice  so  wise  with'n  the  limita- 
tions of  the  practitioner's  knowledge:  that  in- 
deed was  very  limited  as  to  anatomy  and 
physiology,  —  while  the  resources  of  the 
human  constitution  were  better  understood,  as 
were  the  effects  of  climate  and  food. 

Hippocratic  medicine  recognized  that  dis- 
eases resulted  from  natural  causes,  and  should 
be  treated  accordingly.  This  was  a  prodigious 
stride  toward  the  light.     It  is  always  the  task 

[22] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

of  medicine  to  trace  the  true  causes,  as  well 
as  the  probable  course,  of  a  disease;  and  so 
learn  to  prevent  or,  if  not  that,  to  control  and 
cure.  Outside  of  Greece,  as  in  Egypt  or  Baby- 
lonia, physicians  could  not  cease  to  be  priests 
or  astrologers.  There  was  surgery  and  some 
medicine  practiced  in  those  lands;  but  the 
practice  could  not  quite  disregard  supposed 
demoniacal  causes  of  disease  or  detach  itself 
from  the  panacea  of  magic.  These  supersti- 
tions were  stumbling  blocks  before  the  advance 
of  medicine  as  a  science  or  an  art,  progressing 
through  knowledge  and  skill  drawn  from  ob- 
servation and  experience.  Their  complete  elim- 
ination first  comes  before  us  in  the  Hippo- 
cratic writings.  It  was  part  of  the  Greek 
freeing  of  the  human  spirit  from  foolish 
anxieties  and  irrelevant  considerations;  a  put- 
ting things  in  their  right  places,  —  their  right 
categories,  human  and  divine,  natural  and 
supernatural,  if  the  latter  existed  at  all.  In- 
deed the  superhuman  and  divine  might  be  just 
the  other  side,  another  aspect  of  the  human 
and  material,  —  just  as  much  part  of  the  uni- 
versal order  and  just  as  subject  to  law. 

The  classic  Hippocratic  argument  for  this 
principle  is  in  the  tract  On  the  Sacred  Disease, 

[23] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

epilepsy,  which  commonly  was  regarded  as  a 
stroke  or  visitation  of  a  god  or  demon.  But, 
says  the  writer,  "  it  appears  to  me  to  be  nowise 
more  divine  nor  more  sacred  than  other  dis- 
eases, but  has  a  natural  cause  from  which  it 
originates  like  other  affections.  Men  regard  its 
nature  and  cause  as  divine  from  ignorance  and 
wonder,  because  it  is  not  at  all  like  to  other 
diseases.  And  this  notion  of  its  divinity  is  kept 
up  by  their  inability  to  comprehend  it,  and  the 
simplicity  of  the  mode  by  which  it  is  treated, 
for  men  are  freed  from  it  by  purifications  and 
incantations.  But  if  it  is  reckoned  divine  be- 
cause it  is  wonderful,  instead  of  one  there  are 
many  diseases  which  would  be  sacred;  for,  as 
I  will  show,  there  are  others  no  less  wonderful 
and  prodigious,  which  nobody  imagines  to  be 
sacred.  The  quotidian,  tertian  and  quartan 
fevers  seem  to  me  no  less  sacred  and  divine  in 
their  origin  than  this  disease,  though  they  are 
not  reckoned  so  wonderful.  And  I  see  men  be- 
come mad  and  demented  from  no  manifest 
cause.  .  .  .  They  who  first  referred  this  disease 
[epilepsy]  to  the  gods,  appear  to  me  to  have 
been  just  such  persons  as  the  conjurers,  purifi- 
cators,  mountebanks,  and  charlatans  now  are, 
who  give  themselves  out  for  being  excessively 

[24] 


i 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

religious,  and  as  knowing  more  than  other 
people.  Such  persons,  then,  using  the  divinity 
as  a  pretext  and  screen  of  their  own  inability  to 
afford  any  assistance,  have  given  out  that  the 
disease  is  sacred,  adding  suitable  reasons  for 
this  opinion;  they  have  instituted  a  mode  of 
treatment  which  is  safe  for  themselves,  namely 
by  applying  purifications  and  incantations,  and 
enforcing  abstinence  from  baths  and  many 
articles  of  food  which  are  unwholesome  to 
sick  men.  .  .  ."  ^^ 

After  a  statement  of  the  causes  of  the  dis- 
ease within  the  human  body  or  arising  from 
outer  influences,  the  conclusion  follows,  that 
"  this  disease  called  sacred  comes  from  the 
same  causes  as  the  others,  from  cold,  from  the 
sun,  or  from  changing  winds.  These  are 
divine;  but  they  do  not  make  this  disease  more 
divine  than  others.  All  are  human  and  divine 
and  each  has  its  own  nature  and  power." 

So  each  disease  has  its  own  nature  and  can- 
not  arise  without  natural  causes,  —  a  beautiful 
and  enlightened  view  for  which  we  have  so 
largely  to  thank  Hippocrates. 

The  principle  that  disease  and  health  are 
due  to  natural  causes  is  exemplified  in  the  large 
by  the  Hippocratic  tract  On  Airs,  Waters  and 

[25] 


fm'-'ii 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

Places,  which  also  illustrates  the  broad  Hip- 
pocratic  view  of  the  province  of  medicine.  It 
is  the  earliest  essay  known  on  the  influence 
of  physical  environment  upon  health,  disease 
and  temperament.  It  holds  that  the  intelligent 
physician  must  understand  the  effects  of  the 
situation  or  exposure  of  a  city,  of  the  varying 
seasons  and  the  different  winds,  the  quality 
of  the  water,  the  nature  of  the  soil,  and  the 
inhabitants.  It  treats  of  climate  and  the  dis- 
eases which  prevail  in  certain  localities  from 
their  exposure  to  certain  winds;  of  the  kinds 
of  water  and  their  effect  upon  the  human  body, 
for  example  in  the  formation  of  urinary  calculi. 
The  influence  of  the  season  is  then  set  forth; 
and  finally  the  effect  of  climate  and  despotic 
institutions  in  inducing  the  mild  and  unwarlike 
dispositions  of  the  peoples  of  Asia,  whose 
spirit  is  enslaved;  while  the  mountainous  and 
well-watered  lands  of  Europe,  with  their  sharp 
changes  of  season,  have  produced  enterprising 
and  warlike,  or  even  ferocious  inhabitants. 

Such  is  a  scanty  outline  of  this  penetrating 
presentation  of  matters  which  have  been  under 
the  sharpest  discussion,  and  from  so  many 
points  of  view,  in  the  last  hundred  years. 
Without  agreeing  with  all  the  statements  of 

[26] 


I 

\ 

1 


«^ 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

this  great  opening  treatise,  one  will  not  fail  to 
admire  its  profound  intelligence. 

So  Hippocrates  saw  the  natural  causes  of 
disease  in  such  matters  as  unsuitable  food  or 
evil  indulgence,  unhealthy  occupations,  climate 
and  the  changing  seasons.  He  had  also  ob- 
served the  effect  of  heredity  and  the  strength 
of  individual  constitutions  on  their  proneness 
to  disease.  The  office  of  medicine,  of  all  medi- 
cal  treatment,  was  to  assist  the  natural  re- 
cuperative powers  of  the  patient  to  throw  off 
the  disease.  This  Hippocratic  idea  of  nature's 
vis  medicatrix  was  hardly  an  hypothesis,  so 
open  to  observation  was  the  tendency  of 
wounds  to  heal  and  of  sick  people  to  recover. 

For  treatment  Hippocrates  relied  upon  the 
clinical  observation  of  the  course  of  acute  dis- 
ease and  the  significance  of  pathological 
symptoms,  recognized  from  the  contrast  ex- 
hibited with  the  state  of  the  body  in  health. 
Symptoms  had  always  local  significance; 
usually  they  indicated  further  physical  dis- 
turbance. Let  a  comprehensive  and  whole  view 
be  taken  of  the  case,  with  careful  consideration 
of  every  indication  of  the  patient's  condition 
and  chances  of  recovery.  The  symptoms  were 
considered  generally  as  the  phenomena  of  acute 

[27] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

disease.^"*  Viewed  in  this  way  they  were  more 
knowable,  their  significance  better  understood, 
than  the  finer  distinctions  between  one  disease 
and  another  which  admittedly  outran  the 
knowledge  of  these  practitioners.  In  practice 
this  generic  knowledge  was  carefully  adapted 
to  the  particular  case.  The  patient  himself  was 
studied,  his  peculiar  constitution  taken  account 
of,  and  his  symptoms  were  treated  with  refer- 
ence to  his  condition.  These  physicians  w^re 
not  tabulating  diseases,  they  were  set  upon 
meeting  the  exigencies  of  each  case  —  trying 
*'  to  do  good  to  the  patient,  or  at  least  not 
harm  him." 

Accordingly,  instead  of  finely  distinguishing 
diagnoses  of  the  different  diseases,  Hippocrates 
and  his  school  worked  out  a  general  prognosis, 
a  detailed  and  comprehensive  exposition  of  the 
symptoms  and  course  of  acute  disease,  as  ex- 
emplified in  pleurisy  or  pneumonia,  and  in 
those  various  fevers  so  common  in  Greece. 
This  is  the  theme  of  the  TvpoyvuiariKov  or 
Prognosis,  one  of  the  most  authentic  of  the 
Hippocratic  writings:  "He  seems  to  me  the 
best  physician  who  is  able  to  know  in  advance  " 
the  entire  group  of  phenomena  constituting  the 
disease,  to  wit,  to  divine  its  previous  conduct, 

[28] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

its  present  action,  its  future  course.  Thus  he 
will  be  able  to  supplement  the  patient's  faulty 
statements,  gain  his  confidence,  keep  clear  of 
blame  and  be  the  better  able  to  manage  a  cure 
when  that  is  possible. 

In  order  that  the  physician  may  have  such 
knowledge,  the  Prognosis  gives  a  close  descrip- 
tion of  phenomena  common  to  acute  diseases: 
describes  the  look  of  the  countenance,  the 
patient's  position  in  bed,  the  movements  of  his 
hands,  the  respiration,  sweats,  the  dropsies 
which  supervene,  the  sleep,  the  urine,  faeces, 
vomitings  and  sputa,  —  contrasting  these  phe- 
nomena with  those  of  the  body  in  a  state  of 
health.  That  his  countenance  be  like  that  of  a 
person  in  health  is  the  best  of  symptoms,  while 
the  worst  is  that  it  should  show  a  contrast  in 
every  respect;  to  wit:  "a  sharp  nose,  hollow 
eyes,  collapsed  temples;  the  ears  cold,  con- 
tracted, and  their  lobes  turned  out;  the  skin 
about  the  forehead  being  rough,  distended  and 
parched;  the  color  of  the  whole  face  being 
green,  black,  livid,  or  lead  colored." ''  Unless 
such  a  face  can  be  at  once  accounted  for  by 
some  special  reason,  like  want  of  food  or  sleep, 
the  patient  will  surely  die. 

This  is  the  famous  fades  Hippocratica,  the 

[29] 


,,*>. 


1 

11 


I 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND    MEDICINE 

most  frequently  translated  and  imitated  de- 
scription of  a  face  of  a  dying  man:  "  for  his 
nose  was  as  sharp  as  a  pen,"  says  the  Hostess 
of  the  dying  Falstaff. 

Space  fails  me  for  the  writer's  description 
of  unfavorable  signs  from  the  patient's  posi- 
tion in  bed,  —  as  "  lying  upon  his  back,  with 
hands,  neck,  and  legs  extended,"  or  his  wishing 
to  sit  erect  at  the  climax  of  the  disease,  espe- 
cially in  pneumonia,  or  waving  his  hands  be- 
fore his  face,  or  hunting  as  if  gathering  bits 
of  straw  or  picking  the  nap  from  the  coverlet: 
"  for  after  I  saw  him  fumble  with  the  sheets, 
and   play  with  flowers,   and  smile  upon  his 
fingers'  ends,  I  knew  there  was  but  one  way," 
stifl    says    the   Hostess,    who    had    not   read 
Hippocrates,  but  doubtless  had  seen  old  men 

die  before. 

There  is  scarcely  a  statement  in  this  writing 
that  has  failed  to  leave  its  impress  upon  medi- 
cine: witness,  for  example,  the  cult  which  has 
surrounded  its  statement  of  the  periodic  crises 
in  acute  disease.  The  writing  closes  substan- 
tially with  these  words:  "  He  who  would  know 
correctly  beforehand  those  that  will  recover, 
and  those  that  will  die,  and  in  what  cases  the 
disease  will  be  protracted  or  shortened,  must 

[30] 


!   J 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

be  able  to  judge  from  a  thorough  acquaintance 
with  all  the  symptoms  and  a  comparison  of 
their  weightiness,  not  omitting  a  consideration 
of  the  season  of  the  year,  yet  being  sure  that 
at  every  season  bad  symptoms  prognosticate 
ill  and  favorable  symptoms  good.  .  .  .  You 
should  not  complain  because  the  name  of  any 
disease  may  not  be  mentioned  here,  for  you 
may  know  all  such  as  come  to  a  crisis  in 
the  above  mentioned  times  by  the  same  symp- 
toms." 

The  Prognosis  reflects  the  spirit  and  the 
method  of  Hippocrates.  Its  refusal  to  follow 
diagnoses  into  distinctions  between  diseases 
which  lay  beyond  any  physician's  knowl- 
edge was  part  of  this  method  and  spirit;  like- 
wise its  decision  to  abide  by  clinical  experience 
of  acute  disease  and  the  significance  of  con- 
stantly occurring  symptoms.  This  safer  knowl- 
edge enabled  the  physician  to  foresee  the 
course  of  his  patient's  sickness,  and  if  possible 
conduct  it  to  a  cure.  The  salutary  conception 
of  a  sickness  as  a  chain  of  phenomena,  as  a 
whole,  with  a  past,  a  present  and  a  future, 
would  keep  the  physician's  healing  art  from 
crude  empiricism  and  steady  his  practice 
against  haphazard  remedies.    The  healing  art 

[31] 


[I 


I 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

of   Hippocrates   did    not   yet   deem   itself   a 
science;  but  it  travelled  in  the  light. 

In  concluding,  mention  must  be  made  of  the 
Hippocratic  book  of  Aphorisms,  —  for  no 
hand-book  of  medicine  has  ever  been  so 
thumbed  through  many  centuries,  or  trans- 
lated into  so  many  languages.  Its  statements 
are  pithy  resumes  for  the  guidance  of  the 
practitioner,  who  could  not  fail  to  be  the  wiser 
for  conning  them.  Frequently  they  show 
astonishing  insight  and  extraordinary  knowl- 
edge. The  first  and  most  famous  of  them  all 
comes  as  a  solemn  admonition,  —  it  certainly 
has  echoed  down  the  ages:  *0  jSios  ISpaxvs,  fj 
de  rexvn  fJiaKprj,  6  de  Katpos  6^6s,  17  de  irelpa 
(T<j>a\eprj,  i)  de  Kplais  xaXeTTi):^ 
"  Life  is  short  and  the  [healing]  art  is  long; 
the  opportunity  [to  administer  remedies]  fleet- 
ing, experiment  is  dangerous,  the  decision  diffi- 
cult," and  it  continues:  "One  must  not  only 
do  the  the  right  thing  oneself,  but  make  the 
patient  and  all  about  him  concur."  What  is 
said  elsewhere  might  be  added:  "  You  must  not 
only  do  the  proper  thing,  but  do  it  at  the  right 
time." 

Such    admonitions    the    young    practitioner 
might  take  to  heart,  —  and  tremble! 

[32] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

The  tone  of  this  great  aphorism  ^^  is  in  accord 
with  Hippocrates'  great  and  serious  view  of 
medicine  and  the  noble  calling  of  the  physician. 
Futurity  might  well  be  grateful  to  him  for  the 
high  ethics  of  his  vast  authority.  Sage  hints 
as  to  the  physician's  demeanor  are  given  in 
these  works.  Says  the  little  piece  which  is 
called  Nomos,  the  Law  or  Canon:  "  Medicine 
is  of  all  the  arts  the  most  noble;  but  owing  to 
the  ignorance  of  those  who  practice  it  ...  it 
is  far  behind  the  other  arts.  ...  As  the  mute 
figures  on  the  stage  have  the  shape,  dress  and 
appearance  of  actors,  and  yet  are  not,  so 
physicians  are  many  in  title,  but  very  few  in 
reality. 

"  Whoever  is  to  acquire  a  competent  knowl- 
edge of  medicine  ought  to  have  the  following 
advantages:  a  natural  disposition;  instruction; 
a  favorable  position  for  the  study;  early 
tuition;  love  of  labor;  leisure.  First  of  all,  a 
natural  talent  is  required,  for  when  Nature 
opposes,  everything  else  is  in  vain;  but  when 
Nature  leads  the  way  to  what  is  most  excellent, 
instruction  in  the  art  takes  place,  which  the 
student  must  appropriate  to  himself  by  reflec- 
tion, early  becoming  a  pupil  in  a  place  well 
adapted  for  instruction.  He  must  also  bring  to 

[33] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

the  task  a  love  of  labor  and  perseverance,  so 
that  the  instruction,  taking  root,  may  bring 
forth  proper  and  abundant  fruits.  .  .  . 

"  Possessing  all  these  requisites  to  the  study 
of  medicine  and  having  acquired  a  true  knowl- 
edge of  it,  we  shall  thus  in  traveling  through 
the  cities,  be  esteemed  physicians  not  in  name 
but  in  reality.  But  inexperience  is  a  bad 
treasure  ...  the  nurse  of  timidity  and  audac- 
ity. For  timidity  betrays  want  of  powers,  and 
audacity  a  want  of  skill."  ^^ 

Ethically  the  most  influential  document  in 
the  history  of  medicine  is  the  Hippocratic  oath, 
still  administered  to  the  young  doctors  of 
Europe  and  America,  though  modified  to  suit 
ways  of  instruction  which  do  not  keep  to 
the  ancient  paternal  intimacy  of  teacher  and 

disciple. 

"  I  swear  by  Apollo  the  physician,  and 
Aesculapius,  and  Health,  and  All-heal,  and  all 
the  gods  and  goddesses,  that,  according  to  my 
ability  and  judgment,  I  will  keep  this  Oath 
and  this  stipulation :  to  reckon  him  who  taught 
me  this  Art  equally  dear  to  me  as  my  parents, 
to  share  my  substance  with  him,  and  relieve 
his  necessities  if  required;  to  look  upon  his 
offspring   in   the   same    footing   as    my  own 

[34] 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

brothers,  and  to  teach  them  this  Art,  if  they 
shall  wish  to  learn  it,  without  fee  or  stipula- 
tion; and  that  by  precept,  lecture,  and  every 
other  mode  of  instruction,  I  will  impart  a 
knowledge  of  the  Art  to  my  own  sons,  and 
those  of  my  teachers,  and  to  disciples  bound 
by  a  stipulation  and  oath  according  to  the  law 
of  medicine,  but  to  none  others.  I  will  follow 
that  system  of  regimen  which,  according  to  my 
ability  and  judgment,  I  consider  for  the  bene- 
fit of  my  patients,  and  abstain  from  whatever 
is  deleterious  and  mischievous.  I  will  give  no 
deadly  medicine  to  any  one  if  asked,  nor  sug- 
gest any  such  counsel;  and  in  Hke  manner  I 
will  not  give  to  a  woman  a  pessary  to  produce 
abortion.  With  purity  and  with  holiness  I  will 
pass  my  life  and  practice  my  Art.  I  will  not 
cut  persons  laboring  under  the  stone,  but  will 
leave  this  to  be  done  by  men  who  are  practi- 
tioners of  this  work.  Into  whatever  houses 
I  enter,  I  will  go  into  them  for  the  benefit  of 
the  sick,  and  will  abstain  from  every  voluntary 
act  of  mischief  and  corruption;  and,  further, 
from  the  seduction  of  females  or  males,  of 
freemen  and  slaves.  Whatever,  in  connection 
with  my  professional  practice  or  not  in  con- 
nection with  it,  I  see  or  hear,  in  the  life  of 

[35] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 


men,  which  ought  not  to  be  spoken  of  abroad, 
I  will  not  divulge,  as  reckoning  that  all  such 
should  be  kept  secret.  While  I  continue  to 
keep  this  Oath  unviolated,  may  it  be  granted  to 
me  to  enjoy  life  and  the  practice  of  the  Art, 
respected  by  all  men,  in  all  times!  But  should 
I  trespass  and  violate  this  Oath,  may  the  re- 
verse be  my  lot!  "  ^^ 

It  is  unnecessary  to  detail  the  scanty  knowl- 
edge of  anatomy  in  the  Hippocratic  writings 
or  to  dwell  upon  their  ignorance  of  functional 
physiology.  To  such  knowledge  the  study  of 
the  human  body  under  dissection  is  essential, 
and  probably  Hippocrates  and  his  school  did 
not  practice  it.  Yet  they  knew  the  positions 
of  the  internal  organs,  and  had  a  good  knowl- 
edge of  the  skeleton,  of  the  joints  and  liga- 
ments of  the  bones  and  the  larger  superficial 
muscles.  They  knew  enough  to  serve  the  needs 
of  their  excellent  surgery.  Most  efficient  was 
their  treatment  of  fractures  and  dislocations. 
The  surgical  treatises  among  the  Hippocratic 
writings  —  On  Injuries  of  the  Head,  On  Frac- 
tures, On  Dislocations  —  have  evoked  the 
praise  of  surgeons  in  all  times.  Although  they 
had  no  special  knowledge  of  antiseptics  and 
asepsis,  they  practiced  scrupulous  cleanliness 

[36] 


and  understood  the  care  of  surgical  patients. 
The  efficiency  of  Greek  surgery  shows  that  the 
absence  of  certain  specific  knowledge  and 
consequent  practices  now  deemed  essential, 
does  not  preclude  wise  and  successful  treat- 
ment.^* 

Among  the  Hippocratic  qualities  which  de- 
serve the  gratitude  of  mankind,  the  first  place 
should  be  given  to  the  spirit  and  method  of  this 
great  physician  and  his  school,  which  stood 
fast  by  observation  and  experience,  guided  and 
systematized  by  large  and  consistent  views  of 
the  actual  conduct  of  disease.  August  and 
beneficent  was  the  influence  of  this  principle 
and  method  through  the  following  six  hundred 
years  of  Greek  and  Roman-Hellenistic  medi- 
cine, closing  in  the  work  of  Galen.  Advance 
fifteen  centuries  further  in  the  course  of  time 
and  chequered  progress,  and  such  great  physi- 
cians as  Sydenham  (162 4- 1689)  and  Boerhaave 
( 1 668-1 738),  wearied  with  conflicting  and  all- 
unproven  medical  theories,  will  —  like  many 
others  who  have  been  fain  to  do  so  even  to  our 
own  day  —  be  found  reaching  back  to  the 
method  of  Hippocrates. 

Moreover,  if  the  four  humors  have  been 
laughed  out  of  court,  the  cognate  principle  of 

[37] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

correlation  among  the  human  organs  with  the 
consequent  recognition  of  the  general  disorder 
resulting  from  the  sickness  of  any  one  of  them, 
is  with  us  still.  Likewise  the  fundamental 
Hippocratic  tenet  of  assisting  nature  to  work 
her  own  cure  has  remained  valid  and  accepted, 
in  some  form  at  least  of  re-expression  to  suit 
the  different  and  finally  larger  knowledge  of 
later  times.  No  one  disputes  it  today;  and  it 
was  doubly  wise  and  sound  for  men  whose 
knowledge  was  as  pardonably  rudimentary  as 
that  of  Hippocrates.  Charles  Singer  expresses 
his  judgment  of  the  Hippocratics  thus:  ^^  The 
work  of  these  men  may  be  summed  up  by  say- 
ing that  without  dissection,  without  any  ex- 
perimental physiology  or  pathology,  and  with- 
out any  instrumental  aid,  they  pushed  the 
knowledge  of  the  course  and  origin  of  disease 
as  far  as  it  is  conceivable  that  men  in  such 
circumstances  could  push  it.  This  was  done  as 
a  process  of  pure  scientific  induction.  Their 
surgery,  though  hardly  based  on  anatomv,  was 
grounded  on  the  most  carefully  recorded  ex- 
perience. In  therapeutics  they  allowed  them- 
selves neither  to  be  deceived  by  false  hopes 
nor  led  aside  by  vain  traditions.  Yet  in  diag- 
nosis,   prognosis,    surgery    and    therapeutics 


THE     HIPPOCRATICS 

alike  they  were  in  many  departments  unsur- 
passed until  the  nineteenth  century,  and  to 
some  of  their  methods  we  have  reverted  in  the 
twentieth.  Persisting  throughout  the  ages  as  a 
more  or  less  definite  tradition,  which  attained 
clearer  form  during  and  after  the  sixteenth 
century,  Hippocratic  methods  have  formed  the 
basis  of  all  departments  of  modern  advance" ^^ 


[39] 


I 


III.    ARISTOTLE'S    BIOLOGY 

OUR  DEBT  to  Greek  biology  is  not 
to  be  appraised  through  any  attempt 
to  trace  a  causal  continuity  between 
Greece  and  the  modern  world  in  the  develop- 
ment of  this  science,  or  group  of  sciences.  The 
continuity  is  problematical  -and  lacking  in 
causality.  Modern  biological  science  sprang 
from  the  direct  investigation  of  the  natural 
objects  forming  its  provinces.  Modern  an- 
atomy for  instance,  arose  with  Leonardo  and 
Vesalius  from  dissections  of  human  bodies  and 
not  from  study  of  books.  It  is  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  graft  upon  the  ancient  stock. 

The  fundamental  aim  of  biology,  with  the 
Greeks  and  with  ourselves,  has  been  to  learn 
about  living  organisms.  Nevertheless,  Greek 
biology  differed  from  the  modern  biological 
sciences  in  origins  and  associations,  in  method 
and  in  temperament.  Our  present  debt  to  the 
ancient  time  is  owing  not  a  little  to  these  dif- 
ferences.   Let  us  see. 

In  origins;  — Greek  science  began  in  the 
large  unity  of  the  grand  desire  to  know  the 

[40] 


Aristotle's   biology 

constituents  and  processes  of  the  world.  It 
was  pursued  by  men  whom  we  have  been  taught 
to  call  philosophers ;  and  in  fact  only  gradually 
did  philosophy,  more  properly  speaking,  dif- 
ferentiate itself  from  physics,  that  is,  from  the 
elemental  attempt  to  observe  and  know  the 
physical  world.  Greek  philosophy  was  to  con- 
sist of  logical  and  metaphysical  conceptions; 
Greek  physical,  or  let  us  say  specifically  bio- 
logical, science  was  to  continue  as  observation 
and  induction.  Yet  it  did  not  part  company 
from  philosophy,  and  occasionally  employed 
the  same  processes  of  logic  and  even  meta- 
physics. The  same  men  might  still  be  both 
scientists  and  philosophers  —  or  metaphysi- 
cians. The  greatest  of  Greek  biologists  was 
very  nearly  the  greatest  of  Greek  philosophers; 
and  Aristotle  the  biologist  did  not  abjure  the 
logical  and  metaphysical  reasonings  of  Aris- 
totle the  philosopher."^^ 

But  modern  biology,  if  we  fix  our  eyes  upon 
its  most  fecund  inceptions  and  vigorous  growth, 
was  departmental  or  special  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  alien  from  those  sweeping  explana- 
tions and  ultimate  accountings  which  seemed 
to  constitute  philosophy.  In  this  sense,  neither 
Leonardo  nor  Vesalius  nor  Harvey  was  a  phi- 

[41] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

losopher;  "  and  though  Descartes,  a  great 
philosopher,  followed  the  investigations  of 
Harvey  and  dissected  animals,  his  work  along 
these  lines  was  unimportant. 

The  origins  of  Greek  biology  correspond 
with  its  methods  and  its  intellectual  temper 
and  predilections.  Assuredly  it  did  observe, 
and  observed  primarily,  the  objects  or  matters 
which  attracted  Greek  attention.  Heraclitus 
and  Aristotle  might  bid  men  not  to  scorn  to 
notice  humble,  even  disgusting,  things.  But 
usually  it  was  the  objects  which  were  most 
noticeable  and  alive  that  caught  the  Greek 
attention,  like  the  quick  and  cunning  animals 
whose  acts  and  natures  might  throw  some  light 
upon  man  himself,  in  whom  the  Greek  was 
interested  most  of  all.  In  accord,  moreover, 
with  its  origins,  Greek  biology  sought  for 
broad  and  satisfying  facts  or  truths,  such  as 
appealed  to  the  Greek  reasoning  mind.  And 
the  Greek  mind,  like  the  Greek  hand,  was  a 
little  impatient  of  drudgery.  It  was  predis- 
posed to  accept  data  which  satisfied  its  love  of 
order  and  symmetry  and  reason  and  its  desire 
to  find  these  qualities  in  nature.  Hence  it 
failed  to  make  experiments  and  cautiously  to 
verify  what  it  observed  or  desired  to  observe. 

[42] 


] 


Aristotle's   biology 

Greek  biology  presents  penetrating  descrip- 
tions which  often  are  close  and  correct.  The 
descriptions  were  such  as  yielded  explanations. 
The  wky  was  always  lurking,  or  pressing  un- 
concealed behind  the  how,  and  even  instigating 
it.  The  wish  for  explanation  is  the  antecedent 
in  all  science ;  —  in  Greek  biology  it  might 
color  the  description.  So  the  description,  like 
the  wished-for  explanation,  was  a  little  over- 
likely  to  accord  with  the  insistencies  of  the 
Greek  mind.  But  so  penetrating  was  the  in- 
sight of  that  mind,  and  so  mighty  its  impulse 
toward  an  explanatory  ordering  of  things,  that 
the  lesson  and  example  of  its  accomplishment 
have  not  ceased  to  be  the  inspiration  of  the 
intellectual  world.  This  is  as  true  of  Greek 
science  as  of  Greek  philosophy  with  which 
it  was  so  closely  related. 

The  beginnings  of  Greek  biology  were 
noticed  before,  in  speaking  of  the  Hippocratic 
school  of  medicine.  Its  matured  character  can 
best  be  illustrated  from  the  works  of  its 
mightiest  exponent,  Aristotle.  His  three  great 
biological  treatises,  or  compendia,  or  perhaps 
note-books,  may  be  drawn  on  —  the  Historia 
Animalium,  the  De  Partibus  Animalium,  and 

[43] 


I 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

the  De  Generatione  Animalium ;  ""^  then  more 
briefly,  the  Enquiry  Into  Plants  of  his  pupil 
Theophrastus.^* 

Aristotle's  prodigious  legacy  of  biological, 
or  let  us  say  zoological,  knowledge  has  often 
been  commented  on,  criticized,  and  appraised; 
his  extraordinary  insight  and  grasp  of  veritable, 
frequently   intricate  and   difficult   facts  have 
been    made    clear    and    the    errors    (however 
arising)  in  his  writings  exposed.    Usually  one 
can  tell  when  his  knowledge  is  derived  from 
the  reports  of  other  men,  and  when  he  has 
gained  it  from  his  own  observation  of  animals, 
and  especially  from  the  many  dissections  which 
he  must  have  performed.     That  he  dissected 
whatever  animals  he  could  lay  hands  on  is 
proved  by  his  knowledge  of  their  parts;  but 
he  rarely  refers  to  his  dissections  -'  any  more 
than  to  the  method  and   manner  of  his  re- 
searches generally.    It  is  results  or  conclusions 
that  are  given  in  these  writings,  whether  by 
Aristotle  himself  or  some  pupil.'' 

From  the  first  the  reader  is  im.pressed  with 
Aristotle's  comprehensive  desire  to  order  and 
classify  the  objects  of  his  study.  He  would 
distinguish  the  parts  of  animals  and  arrange 
the  animals  themselves  by  genera  and  species, 

[44] 


1 


ARISTOTLE^S     BIOLOGY 

constantly  seeking  an  order  of  progression 
corresponding  to  the  excellence  and  amplitude 
of  the  equipment  of  each  group  of  animals. 
The  opening  description,  or  division,  of  the 
parts  of  animals  is  so  reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms,  and  therefore  so  abstract  that  effort  is 
needed  to  perceive  its  significance. 

^'  Of  the  parts  of  animals  some  are  simple: 
to  wit,  all  such  as  divide  into  parts  uniform 
with  themselves,  as  flesh  into  flesh;  others  are 
composite,  such  as  divide  into  parts  not  uni- 
form with  themselves,  as,  for  instance,  the 
hand  does  not  divide  into  hands  nor  the  face 
into  faces."  This  distinction  held  good  in 
Aristotle's  time  as  now;  -"  but  the  depth  of  its 
validity  has  been  plumbed  only  through  modern 
microscopic  study  of  cells  and  tissues. 

So  in  regard  to  the  classification  of  animals 
by  genera  and  species  which  may  be  drawn 
from  his  writings.  Altogether  Aristotle  refers 
to  about  five  hundred  and  forty  animals  of  all 
kinds,  including  insects;  and  yet  modern 
zoology,  recognizing  more  nearly  one  million 
species,  largely  preserves  his  classification. 

The  attribute  of  soul  or  life  and  the  degree 
and  kinds  of  its  efficient  presence  are  with 
Aristotle  the  criterion  of  excellence  in  living 

[45] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND    MEDICINE 

organisms:  by  the  possession  of  a  soul  or  an 
organic  life  with  nutritive  faculty,  a  plant  is 
superior  to  a  stone;  by  the  possession  of  a  soul 
or  an  organic  life,  with  sensitive,  appetitive  and 
motor    faculties    (besides   the    nutritive),    an 
animal  is  superior  to  a  plant;  and  by  the  addi- 
tion of  the  intellectual  faculty  in  his  soul  or 
organic  life,  man  is  supreme  among  animals. 
As  another  and  concomitant  test  of  excel- 
lence, Aristotle  took  the  amount  of  vital  heat 
which  the  animal  possessed.    "  The  more  per- 
fect are  those  which  are  hotter  in  their  nature 
and  have  more  moisture  and  are  not  earthy  in 
their  composition,  and  the  measure  of  natural 
heat  is  the  lung  when  it  has  blood  in  it,  for 
generally  those  animals  which  have   a  lung 
are  hotter  than  those  which  have  it  not  and  in 
the  former  class  again  those  whose  lung  is  not 
spongy  nor  solid  nor  containing  only  a  little 
blood,  but  soft  and  full  of  blood."  '' 

These  tests  of  excellence  might  be  difficult 
to  apply  to  the  classification  of  animals  into 
genera  and  species,—  a  yearning  for  vhich  wHh 
a  realization  of  its  practical  and  lo^fical  diffi- 
culties, pervades  Aristotle's  biolosjical  treatises, 
as  already  said.  It  will  be  interesting  to  feel 
our  way  along  his  various  avenues  of  approach 

[46] 


1 


Aristotle's   biology 

to  this  many-sided  problem,  proceeding  very 
tentatively  with  a  suspicion  that  after  all  we 
may  be  following  not  his  mental  processes,  but 
our  own. 

Undoubtedly  a  comprehensive  examination 
of  living  organisms  (animals  rather  than  plants 
are  in  Aristotle's  mind)  must  embrace  the 
processes  of  formation  of  each  animal,  as  well 
as  of  its  characters  when  formed.  He  bids  us 
remember  that  abstractions  cannot  form  the 
subject  of  a  natural  science,  and  individual 
animals  are  the  real  existences,  and  not  the 
genera  formed  by  the  mind.  It  is  with  indi- 
viduals that  we  have  to  deal,  when  trying  to 
study  their  formation  and  characteristics  and 
even  when  trying  to  form  groups  of  genera  and 
species.  Thus  he  insists  upon  the  concrete 
as  the  real  object  of  study;  yet  he  groups  and 
classifies  and  seeks  ever  the  general  qualities 
in  these  concrete  existences  —  even  as  he  did 
in  his  famous  theory  of  tragedy,  in  the  Poetics, 
—  and  one  should  not  draw  back  from  the 
humblest  details  provided  they  lead  us  on  and 
disclose  the  great  design.    Therefore: 

"  Having  already  treated  of  the  celestial 
world,  as  far  as  our  conjectures  could  reach, 
we  proceed  to  treat  of  animals,  without  omit- 

[47] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

ting  to  the  best  of  our  ability  any  member  of 
the  kingdom,  however  ignoble.  For  if  some 
have  no  graces  to  charm  the  sense,  yet  even 
these,  by  disclosing  to  intellectual  perception 
the  artistic  spirit  that  designed  them,  give  im- 
mense pleasure  to  all  who  can  trace  links  of 
causation,  and  are  inclined  to  philosophy.  .  .  . 
We  therefore  must  not  recoil  with  childish 
aversion  from  the  examination  of  the  humbler 
animals.  Every  realm  of  nature  is  marvellous 
...  so  we  should  venture  on  the  study  of  every 
kind  of  animal  without  distaste;  for  each  and 
all  will  reveal  to  us  something  natural  aj^ 
something  beautiful.  Absence  of  the  haphazard 
and  conduciveness  of  everything  to  an  end  are 
to  be  found  in  Nature's  works  in  the  highest 
degree,  and  the  resultant  end  of  her  gen- 
erations and  combinations  is  a  form  of  the 
beautiful. 

"  If  any  person  thinks  the  examination  of 
the  rest  of  the  animal  kingdom  an  unworthy 
task,  he  must  hold  in  like  dis-esteem  the  study 
of  man.  For  no  one  can  look  at  the  primordia 
of  the  human  frame  —  blood,  flesh,  bones, 
vessels,  and  the  like  —  without  much  repug- 
nance. Moreover,  when  any  one  of  the  parts 
or  structures,  be  it  which  it  may,  is  under  dis- 

[48] 


1), 


1 


Aristotle's   biology 

cussion,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  it  is  its 
material  composition  to  which  attention  is 
being  directed  or  which  is  the  object  of  the 
discussion,  but  the  relation  of  such  part  to  the 
total  form.  Similarly,  the  true  object  of  archi- 
tecture is  not  bricks,  mortar,  or  timber,  but  the 
house;  and  so  the  principal  object  of  natural 
philosophy  is  not  the  material  elements,  but 
their  composition,  and  the  totality  of  the 
form,  independently  of  which  they  have  no 
existence."  ^^ 

So  the  concrete  part  or  element,  or  possibly 
vhe  individual  animal,  presents  small  intellec-  ' 
tual  interest  by  itself,  but  only  as  it  contributes  • 
to  the  whole  and  exhibits  the  beautiful  design. 
Aristotle  examines  individuals  to  discover  their 
common  attributes;  for  his  real  interest  leaps 
to  the  group.  And  so  he  continues  immediately 
after  the  last  words  quoted  from  him:  "The 
course  of  exposition  must  be  first  to  state  the 
attributes  common  to  whole  groups  of  animals, 
and  then  to  attempt  to  give  their  explanation." 
That  is  to  say,  we  have  first  to  describe  the 
phenomena  presented  by  each  group,  and 
afterwards  state  the  causes  of  those  phenomena 
and  deal  with  their  coming  into  existence. 

There  is  law  and  purpose  behind  the  forma- 

[49] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND    MEDICINE 

tion  of  every  animal  and  every  part  of  an 
animal,  since  everything  that  nature  makes  is 
a  means  to  an  end,  and  nature  does  nothing 
in  vain.  "  It  is  evident  that  there  must  be 
something  or  other  really  existing,  correspond- 
ing to  what  we  call  by  the  name  of  Nature. 
For  a  given  germ  does  not  give  rise  to  any 
chance  living  being,  nor  spring  from  any 
chance  one;  but  each  germ  springs  from  a 
definite  parent  and  gives  rise  to  a  definite 
progeny.  And  thus  it  is  the  germ  that  is  the 
ruling  influence  and  fabricator  of  the  off- 
spring." ^°") 

The  classification  of  living  beings  should 
take  account,  it  would  seem,  both  of  their  char- 
acteristics and  of  the  processes  by  which  they 
and  their  characteristics  came  into  existence. 
In  either  case  nature  herself  makes  no  break, 
admits  no  gap,  in  the  whole  scale  of  animate 
and  inanimate  being:  "  Nature  proceeds  little 
by  little  from  things  lifeless  to  animal  life  in 
such  a  way  that  it  is  impossible  to  determine 
the  exact  line  of  demarcation,  nor  on  which 
side  thereof  an  intermediate  form  should  be. 
Thus,  next  after  lifeless  things  in  the  upward 
scale  comes  the  plant,  and  of  plants  one  will 
differ  from  another  as  to  its  amount  of  apparent 

[50] 


I 


Aristotle's   biology 

vitality;  and  in  a  word,  the  whole  genus  of 
plants,  whilst  it  is  devoid  of  life  as  compared 
with  an  animal,  is  endowed  with  life  as  com- 
pared with  other  corporeal  entities.  Indeed,  as 
we  first  remarked,  there  is  observed  in  plants  a 
continuous  scale  of  ascent  towards  the  animal. 
So  in  the  sea,  there  are  certain  objects  concern- 
ing which  one  would  be  at  a  loss  to  determine 
whether  they  be  animal  or  vegetable.  For  in- 
stance, certain  of  these  objects  [e.g.  sponges] 
are  fairly  rooted,  and  in  several  cases  perish 
if  detached.  .  .  .  Indeed,  broadly  speaking,  the 
entire  genus  of  testaceans  has  a  resemblance  to 
vegetables,  if  they  be  contrasted  with  such 
animals  as  are  capable  of  progression. 

"  In  regard  to  sensibility,  some  animals  give 
no  indication  whatsoever  of  it,  whilst  others 
indicate  it  but  indistinctly.  Further,  the  sub- 
stance of  some  of  these  intermediate  creatures 
is  fleshlike  .  .  .  but  the  sponge  is  in  every 
respect  like  a  vegetable.  And  so  throughout 
the  entire  animal  scale  there  is  a  graduated 
differentiation  in  amount  of  vitality  and  in 
capacity  for  motion. 

"  A  similar  statement  holds  good  with  regard 
to  habits  of  life.  Thus  of  plants  that  spring 
from  seed  the  one  function  seems  to  be  the 

[51] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

reproduction  of  their  own  particular  species, 
and  the  sphere  of  action  with  certain  animals 
is  similarly  limited.  The  faculty  of  reproduc- 
tion, then,  is  common  to  all  alike.  If  sensibility 
be  superadded,  then  their  lives  will  differ  from 
one  another  in  respect  to  sexual  intercourse 
through  the  varying  amount  of  pleasure  de- 
rived therefrom,  and  also  in  regard  to  modes 
of  parturition  and  the  ways  of  rearing  their 
young.  Some  animals,  like  plants,  simply 
procreate  their  own  species  at  different  seasons; 
other  animals  busy  themselves  also  in  pro- 
curing food  for  their  young,  and  after  they  are 
reared  quit  them  and  have  no  further  dealings 
with  them;  other  animals  are  more  intelligent 
and  endowed  with  memory,  and  they  live  with 
their  offspring  for  a  longer  period  and  on  a  more 
social  footing. 

"  The  life  of  animals,  then,  may  be  divided 
into  two  acts,  —  procreation  and  feeding;  for 
on  these  two  acts  all  their  interests  and  life 
concentrate.  Their  food  depends  chiefly  on 
the  substance  of  which  they  are  severally  con- 
stituted; for  the  source  of  their  growth  in  all 
cases  will  be  this  substance.  And  whatever 
is  in  conformity  with  nature  is  pleasant,  and 
all  animals  pursue  pleasure  in  keeping  with 
their  nature."  ^^ 

[52] 


' 


Aristotle's   biology 

These  famous  passages  may  be  taken  as 
indicating  Aristotle's  view  of  the  graded  order- 
ing of  life,  with  reference  to  the  phenomena 
exhibited  by  living  beings  after  they  are 
formed.  The  processes  of  their  generation 
were  likewise  graded  in  accordance  with  the 
nature  of  the  animal.  This  graded  change  in  it 
the  manner  of  generation,  more  than  any  other 
fact,  seems  to  have  determined  Aristotle's 
classification  of  animals. 

Doubtless  a  similarity  in  obvious  organic 
structure  led  men  to  recognize  the  larger 
natural  divisions,  like  birds  and  fishes.  Such 
generic  likenesses,  with  due  account  taken  of 
evident  as  well  as  more  subtle  differences, 
might  be  followed  in  forming  conceptions  of 
subordinate  groups.  But  to  the  mind  searching 
for  criterions  of  identity  or  distinction,  nothing 
is  more  taking  than  the  ways  in  which  animals 
reproduce  their  kind.  So  felt  this  profound 
student  of  life.  Perhaps  no  other  man  has  ever 
discovered  so  many  interesting  facts  touching 
the  production  of  the  young  within  and  without 
the  womb.  Of  course  he  stood  but  at  the  ^ 
threshold  of  embryology.  He  had  no  micro- 
scope. The  myriad  facts  v/hich  the  studies  of 
the  last  two  centuries  have  elicited  were  un- 

[53] 


4 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

known  to  him  for  the  most  part  —  but  not 
altogether,  since  now  and  then  the  modern 
investigator  ''  discovers  "  what  Aristotle  knew. 
Yet  whole  provinces  of  the  considerations  of 
modern  biology  scarcely  touched  him.  All  the 
more  marvellous  were  the  forward  thrusts  of 
his  mind  toward  what  the  distant  future  should 
make  clear.  One  of  those  thrustings  forward 
was  the  classification  of  animals,  which  may 
be  drawn  from  his  writings. 

His  fundamental  division  was  into  animals 
with  blood  and  animals  without,  that  is  to  say, 
those  who  have  no  true  blood  but  a  different 
fluid  performing  a  like  nutritive  function. 
This  division  coincides  with  the  modern  one 
—  into  vertebrates  and  invertebrates,  ascribed  to 
Lamarck  (i 744-1829).  Through  the  constit- 
uent groups  under  both  divisions  will  be  found 
a  series  of  gradations  in  foetal  development 
within  the  parent's  body;  and  these  determine^f 
the  Aristotelian  group  formation.  *^ 

Man,  the  Cetacea,  viviparous  quadrupeds, 
birds,  reptiles,  fishes,  bony  and  then  cartilag- 
inous, come  within  the  division  of  animals 
with  blood.  Aristotle  had  no  conception  of  the 
mammalian  ovum,  and  consequently  regarded 
the  embryo  of  mammals  as  born  alive  within 

[54] 


ARISTOTLE'S     BIOLOGY 

the  womb,  and  as  living  in  a  fuller  sense  (or 
with  more  kinds  of  life)  than  could  be  ascribed 
to  an  egg.  In  the  three  lower  orders  of  blooded 
animals,  the  young  developed  from  an  egg; 
hence  these  were  essentially  oviparous,  although 
the  egg  might  hatch  within  the  mother  and 
the  young  come  forth  alive,  as  is  the  case  of 
certain  sharks.  Such  animals  were  externally 
viviparous,  yet  the  young  began  as  an  egg 
and  not  as  a  living  foetus. 

In  the  grounds  of  this  classification  there 
was  fundamental  error,  arising  from  Aristotle's 
ignorance  of  the  mammalian  tgg^  and  yet  much 
penetrating  observation,  the  results  of  which 
still  hold.  His  work  upon  the  chick  of  the 
domestic  fowl,  and  his  extraordinary  anticipa- 
tory description  of  the  gestation  of  certain 
sharks  are  examples.  In  his  method  of  close 
continuous  study  of  the  chick  developing  with- 
in the  egg,  he  may  have  been  preceded  by  the 
writer  of  one  of  the  Hippocratic  tracts.  ^^ 

^'  Generation  from  the  egg  proceeds  in  an 
identical  manner  with  all  birds,  but  the  full 
periods  from  conception  to  birth  differ.  .  .  . 
With  the  common  hen,  after  three  days  and 
three  nights,  there  is  the  first  indication  of  the 
embryo  ...  the  heart  appears  like  a  speck  of 

[55] 


I 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

blood  in  the  white  of  the  egg.  This  point 
beats  and  moves  as  though  endowed  with  life, 
and  from  it  two  vein-ducis  with  blood  in  them 
trend  in  a  convoluted  course ;  and  a  membrane 
carrying  bloody  fibres  now  envelops  the  yolk, 
leading  off  from  the  vein-ducts.  A  little  after- 
wards the  body  is  differentiated,  at  first  very 
small  and  white.  The  head  is  clearly  distin- 
guished, and  in  it  the  eyes,  swollen  out  to  a 
great  extent.  .  .  ."  ^^ 

Without  carrying  further  our  citation  on  the 
chick,  we  may  remark  that  Aristotle  saw  all 
that  can  be  seen  without  a  microscope.  His 
description  of  the  gestation  of  the  placental 
sharks  makes  too  difficult  a  matter  for  a  lay- 
man to  set  forth  for  other  laymen.  I  will 
borrow  the  account  given  by  an  Aristotelian 
scholar  who  is  himself  a  biologist. 

''  There  is  perhaps  no  chapter  in  the  His- 
toria  Animalium  more  attractive  to  the  anato- 
mist than  one  which  deals  with  the  anatomy 
and  mode  of  reproduction  of  the  cartilaginous 
fishes,  the  sharks  and  rays,  a  chapter  which 
moved  to  admiration  that  prince  of  anatomists, 
Johannes  Miiller.  The  latter  wrote  a  volume 
[Ueber  den  glatten  Hat  des  Aristoteles,  Berlin, 
1842]  on  the  text  of  a  page  of  Aristotle,  a  page 

[56] 


Aristotle's   biology 

packed  full  of  a  multitude  of  facts,  in  no  one 
of  which  did  Johannes  Muller  discover  a  flaw. 
The  subject  is  technical,  but  the  gist  of  the 
matter  is  this:  that  among  the  Selachians  (as, 
after  Aristotle,  we  still  sometimes  call  them) 
there  are  many  diversities  in  the  structure  of 
the  parts  in  question,  and  several  distinct 
modes  in  which  the  young  are  brought  forth 
and  matured.  For  in  many  kinds  an  egg  is 
laid,  which  eggs,  by  the  way,  Aristotle  de- 
scribes with  great  minuteness.  Other  kinds 
do  not  lay  eggs,  but  bring  forth  their  young 
alive,  and  these  include  the  Torpedo  and 
numerous  sharks  or  dogfish.  The  egg-shell  is 
in  these  cases  very  thin,  and  breaks  before  the 
birth  of  the  young.  But  among  them  there  are 
a  couple  of  sharks,  of  which  one  species  was 
within  Aristotle's  reach,  where  a  very  curious 
thing  happens.  Through  the  delicate  mem- 
brane, which  is  all  that  is  left  of  the  egg-shell, 
the  great  yolk-sac  of  the  embryo  becomes  con- 
nected with  the  parental  tissues,  which  infold 
and  interweave  with  it;  and  by  means  of  this 
temporary  union  the  blood  of  the  parent  be- 
comes the  medium  of  nourishment  for  the 
young.  And  the  whole  arrangement  is  physio- 
logically identical  with  what  obtains  in   the 

[57] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

higher  animals,  the  mammals,  or  warm-blooded 
vivipara.  It  is  true  that  the  yolk-sac  is  not 
identical  with  that  other  embryonic  membrane 
which  comes  in  the  mammals  to  discharge  the 
function  of  which  I  speak;  but  Aristotle  was 
aware  of  the  difference,  and  distinguishes  the 
two  membranes  with  truth  and  accuracy. 

"  It  happens  that  of  the  particular  genus  of 
sharks  to  which  this  one  belongs,  there  are 
two  species  differing  by  almost  imperceptible 
characters;  but  it  is  in  one  only  of  the  two, 
the  yaXeos  Xeios  of  Aristotle,  that  this  singu- 
lar phenomenon  of  the  placenta  vitellina  is 
found.  It  is  found  in  the  great  blue  shark 
of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Mediterranean;  but 
this  creature  grows  to  a  very  large  size  before 
it  breeds,  and  such  great  specimens  are  not 
likely  to  have  come  under  Aristotle's  hands. 
Cuvier  (i  769-1832)  detected  the  phenomenon 
in  the  blue  shark,  but  paid  little  attention  to  it, 
and,  for  all  his  knowledge  of  Aristotle,  did 
not  perceive  that  he  was  dealing  with  an  im- 
portant fact  which  the  Philosopher  had  studied 
and  explained.  In  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  anatomist  Steno  (1638-86)  actually  re- 
discovered the  phenomenon,  in  the  7aXc6s 
Xetos,    the  Mustelus  laevis  itself,  but  he  was 

[58] 


^ 


Aristotle's   biology 

unacquainted  with  Aristotle.  And  the  very 
fact  was  again  forgotten  until  Johannes  Muller 
brought  it  to  light,  and  showed  not  only  how 
complete  was  Aristotle's  account,  but  how  wide 
must  have  been  his  survey  of  this  class  of 
fishes  to  enable  him  to  record  this  peculiarity 
in  its  relation  to  their  many  differences  of 
structure  and  reproductive  habit."  '* 

Turning  from  animals  with  blood  to  the 
bloodless  animals,  Aristotle  continues  his 
attempt  to  guide  himself  by  the  descending 
methods  of  reproduction,  which  correspond 
with  the  lowering  degrees  of  life  and  vital 
function  in  these  inferior  but  still  marvellously 
interesting  creatures.  Passing  downwards 
through  those  Crustacea  which  he  finds  gener- 
ated from  an  imperfect  ovum,  he  enters  the 
realm  of  insects.  These  spring  from  the 
scolex  or  grub,  which  is  metamorphosed,  pass- 
ing through  the  chrysalis  or  pupa,  into  the 
perfect  insect. ^^  Lowest  in  the  scale  are 
molluscs  and  finally  the  zoophytes  (sponges, 
Coelenterates)  which  are  produced  from 
generative  slime  or  by  spontaneous  gen- 
eration. The  last  idea,  of  course,  has  been 
abandoned. 

Instead    of   giving   the    further   details   of 

[59] 


i 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

Aristotle's  orders  of  animals,  I  quote  the  criti- 
cal resume  of  a  recent  authority: 

"The  classification  of  birds  is  to  this  day 
in  an  unstable  state.  We  may  say  that  Aris- 
totle's grouping  is  substantially  that  which  pre- 
vailed in  scientific  works  till  recent  times  and 
still  remains  as  the  popular  division.  His 
separation  of  the  cartilaginous  from  the  bony 
fishes,  on  the  other  hand,  still  stands  in  scien- 
tific works,  and  is  a  stroke  of  genius  which 
must  have  been  reached  by  means  of  careful 
dissection.  .  .  . 

"  For  the  Anaima  [bloodless]  or  Inverte- 
brates even  modern  systems  of  classification 
are  but  tentative.  There  is  an  enormous  num- 
ber of  species,  and  after  centuries  of  research 
naturalists  still  find  vast  gaps  even  in  the  field 
of  mere  naked-eye  observation.  Nevertheless, 
with  the  instinct  of  genius,  and  with  only 
some  240  of  these  forms  on  which  to  work, 
Aristotle  has  fastened  on  some  of  the  most 
salient  points.  Especially  brilliant  is  his  treat- 
ment of  the  Molluscs.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  he  dissected  the  bodies  and  carefully 
watched  the  habits  of  octopuses  and  squids, 
Malacia  as  he  calls  them.  He  separates  them 
too  far  from  the  other  Molluscs  grouped  by 

[60] 


Aristotle's   biology 

him  as  Ostracoderma,  but  his  actual  descrip- 
tions of  the  structure  of  the  Cephalopods  are 
exceedingly  remarkable.  His  distinctions  be- 
tween the  Malacostraca  or  Crustacea,  Entoma, 
Sponges,  and  Jellyfish  are  also  still  of  value, 
and  these  divisions  remain  along  much  the 
same  lines  as  he  left  them."  ^« 

In  reading  through  the  biological  treatises 
of  Aristotle,  one  realizes  that  they  are  the 
pioneerings  of  a  mighty  mind.  He  was  laying 
out  the  multitudinous  matter,  striving,  not 
indeed  to  introduce  an  order  not  its  own  into 
the  chaos  of  Nature,  but  rather  to  apprehend 
and  describe  and  know  the  reason  of  the  intri- 
cate and  marvelous  order  which  was  embodied 
in  Nature's  realm.  That  Nature  held  such 
order,  and  presented  it  and  worked  ever  with 
purpose  in  fulfilling  it,  was  Aristotle's  scien- 
tific and  philosophic  faith.  If  Anaxagoras  or 
another  had  this  faith  before  him,  he  was  to 
render  it  explicit  through  a  more  adequate 
analysis,  a  keener  discrimination,  and  a  mar- 
shalling of  detail  hitherto  unattempted.  He 
was  a  universal  pioneer  in  nature's  vast  realm: 
an  investigating  and  dissecting  pioneer,  press- 
ing on  through  all  the  seeming  mazes  of  the 
unexplored  jungle,  insistent  upon  laying  out 

[61] 


^ 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

or  rather  discovering  the  paths  of  Nature's 
ordering.  Thus  he  was  a  pioneer  of  natural 
science.  But  the  intellectual  needs  of  the 
philosopher  drove  him  to  another  and  more 
ultimate  kind  of  pioneering.  He  must  think 
the  matter  out,  and  find  the  logical,  even  the 
metaphysical  basis  of  justification  of  his 
apprehension  of  Nature's  processes:  he  must 
adjust  his  knowledge  of  Nature  to  the  demands 
of  his  thought  and  possibly  constrain  it  to  the 
categories  of  his  metaphysics.''  Let  us  follow 
him,  for  a  little,  here. 

Aristotle  proceeds  to  attack  the  basic  how 
and  why  of  living  things.  His  treatment  of 
these  organisms  —  that  is,  his  biology  — did 
not  call  for  a  discussion  of  the  world's  material, 
but  merely  its  adaptability  to  nature's  pur- 
poses. But  his  treatment  did  demand  a  dis- 
criminating conception  of  causation  in  order 
to  understand  how  plants  and  animals  came 
to  be  what  they  were.  Although  his  analysis 
of  the  four  kinds  of  causes  is  familiar,  we  may 
note  the  application  made  of  it  in  his  biology. 

"There  are  four  causes  underlying  every- 
thing: first,  the  final  cause,  that  for  the  sake 
of  which  a  thing  exists;  secondly,  the  formal 
cause,  the  definition  of  its  essence  (and  these 

[62] 


Aristotle's    biology 

two  we  may  regard  pretty  much  as  one  and 
the  same);  thirdly,  the  material;  and  fourthly, 
the  moving  principle  or  efficient  cause."  ^^ 

"  Now  that  with  which  the  ancient  writers, 
who  first  philosophized  about  nature,  busied 
themselves,  was  the  material  principle  and  the 
material  cause.  They  inquired  what  this  is, 
and  what  its  character;  how  the  universe  is 
generated  out  of  it,  and  by  what  motor  in- 
fluence, whether,  for  instance,  by  antagonism 
or  friendship,  whether  by  intelligence  or  spon- 
taneous action,^^  —  the  substratum  of  matter 
being  assumed  to  have  certain  inseparable 
properties;  fire,  for  instance,  to  have  a  hot 
nature,  earth,  a  cold  one;  the  former  to  be 
light,  the  latter  heavy.  For  even  the  genesis 
of  the  universe  is  thus  explained  by  them. 
After  a  like  fashion  they  deal  with  the  develop- 
ment of  plants  and  of  animals.  They  say,  for 
instance,  that  the  water  contained  in  the  body 
causes  by  its  currents  the  formation  of  the 
stomach  and  the  other  receptacles  of  food  or  of 
excretion;  and  that  the  breath  by  its  passage 
breaks  open  the  outlets  of  the  nostrils;  air  and 
water  being  the  materials  of  which  bodies  are 
made;  for  all  represent  nature  as  composed  of 
such  or  similar  substances. 

[63] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 


"  But  if  men  and  animals  and  their  several 
parts  are  natural  phenomena,  then  the  natural 
philosopher  must  take  into  consideration  not 
merely  the  ultimate  substances  of  which  they 
are  made,  but  also  flesh,  bone,  blood,  and  all 
the  other  homogeneous  parts;  not  only  these, 
but  also  the  heterogeneous  parts,  such  as  face, 
hand,  foot;  and  must  examine  how  each  of 
these  comes  to  be  what  it  is,  and  in  virtue  of 
what  force.  For  to  say  what  are  the  ultimate 
substances  out  of  which  an  animal  is  formed 
...  is  no  more  sufficient  that  would  be  a  similar 
account  in  the  case  of  a  couch  or  the  like. 
For  we  should  not  be  content  to  say  that  the 
couch  was  made  of  bronze  or  wood,  but  should 
try  to  describe  its  design  or  mode  of  composi- 
tion in  preference  to  material;  or,  if  we  deal 
with  the  material,  it  would  at  any  rate  be  with 
the  concretion  of  material  and  form.  For  a 
couch  is  such  and  such  a  form  embodied  in 
this  or  that  matter,  or  such  and  such  matter 
with  this  or  that  form;  so  that  its  shape  and 
structure  must  be  included  in  our  description. 
For  the  formal  nature  is  of  greater  importance 
than  the  material  nature." 

Aristotle  then  shows,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  shape  and  color  do  not  make  the  essence 

[64] 


Aristotle's   biology 

of  an  animal  or  its  parts:  a  dead  body  is  not 
a  man,  nor  a  bronze  hand  a  hand,  nor  the  eye 
in  a  dead  body  really  an  eye.  Rather,  to  de- 
scribe an  animal,  one  must  show  what  it 
actually  is  in  substance  as  well  as  form;  and 
so  with  its  several  organs.  He  then  argues 
that  it  is  the  soul  or  life  which  constitutes  the 
essential  nature  of  the  animal.  For  "  nature 
is  spoken  of  in  two  senses,  and  the  nature  of  a 
thing  is  either  its  matter  or  its  essence;  nature 
as  essence  including  both  the  motor  cause  and 
the  final  cause.  Now  it  is  in  the  latter  of 
these  two  senses  that  either  the  whole  soul 
or  some  part  of  it  constitutes  the  nature  of  an 
animal." 

Nature  always  seeks  an  end,  —  a  famous 
Aristotelian  statement;  and  the  end  is  the  final 
cause,  which  in  the  case  of  animals  is  the  soul 
or  the  life  of  the  animal,  the  full  functioning 
of  its  nature.  Logically,  that  is,  in  thought, 
this  final  cause  or  end  is  prior  to  the  motor 
cause;  "  For  this  is  the  Reason,  and  the  Reason 
forms  the  starting  point,  alike  in  the  works 
of  art  and  in  works  of  nature."  With  a  builder 
the  final  cause  is  the  construction  of  a  house; 
in  nature  it  is  the  making  of  an  animal.  "  In 
the  works  of  nature  the  good  end  and  the  final 

[65] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 


cause  is  still  more  dominant  than  in  works 
of  art."  So  it  constitutes  the  nature  of  the 
animal  or  the  nature  of  an  organ  more  than 
the  material  of  its  body  or  the  necessary  pro- 
cesses of  its  growth  or  natural  formation  do.^*^ 
[Yet]  "  in  order  of  time,  the  material  and  the 
generative  process  must  necessarily  be  an- 
terior to  the  being  that  is  generated;  but  in 
logical  order  the  definitive  character  and  form 
of  each  being  precedes  the  material." 

"  But  Nature  flies  from  the  infinite,"  says 
Aristotle  in  consonance  with  his  Greek  tem- 
perament, and,  thinking  of  the  literally  un- 
ending confusion  that  would  result  if  parents 
did  not  produce  offspring  of  the  same  kind  with 
themselves,  he  says:  "for  the  infinite  is  un- 
ending or  imperfect,  and  Nature  ever  seeks 
an  end."  *^ 

So  universal  Nature,  or  Nature  in  the  large, 
and  so  the  nature  of  the  individual  animal. 
As  for  the  natural  philosopher,  he  would  be 
but  a  crude  teleologist,  with  but  a  crude  notion 
of  the  working  of  final  cause,  that  is,  of  plan 
and  purposeful  utility,  did  he  not  find  this 
plan  and  use  in  every  detail  of  the  animal 
structure.  Since  the  soul,  or  life,  or  the  full 
living  functioning  is  the  end  or  object  of  each 

[66  1 


% 


Aristotle's   biology 

individual  animal,  it  must  direct  and  mould 
the  growth  and  character  of  every  part. 
Aristotle  holds  this  creed,  and  devotes  the  De 
Partibus  Animalium  to  its  special  illustration. 

First  he  shows  it  generally  in  regard  to  the 
animal's  component  parts.  The  homogeneous 
fluids  and  tissues  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  more 
especially  active  parts  or  organs,^^  like  the  eye 
or  hand.  They  must  possess  the  different 
properties,  like  fluidity,  softness,  or  hardness, 
required  by  the  organ,  and  of  which  it  will 
present  a  combination.  "  For  the  hand  .  .  . 
requires  one  property  to  enable  it  to  effect 
pressure,  and  another  and  different  property 
for  simple  prehension.  For  this  reason  the 
active  or  executive  parts  of  the  body  are  com- 
pounded out  of  bones,  sinews,  flesh  and  the  like, 
but  not  these  latter  out  of  the  former."  And 
the  relations  between  these  two  orders  of 
parts  are  determined  by  a  final  cause,*^  which 
is  the  life  of  the  whole  animal. 

Aristotle  will  not  flinch  from  the  principle 
that  this  final  end,  the  life  of  the  whole  animal, 
calls  every  part  into  being.  It  is  irrational 
to  hold  the  reverse,  i.e.,  that  the  character  or 
mechanical  power  of  a  part  produces  or  de- 
termines that  final  end  which  is  the  life  or 

[67] 


'1 

.1 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

soul  with  its  distinguishing  properties.  The 
motor  or  efficient  cause  must  be  subordinate  to 
the  final  cause,  and  never  the  reverse. 

To  illustrate  by  a  famous  instance:  "  Stand- 
ing thus  erect,  man  has  no  need  of  legs  in 
front,  and  in  their  stead  has  been  endowed  by 
nature  with  arms  and  hands.  Now  it  is  the 
opinion  of  Anaxagoras  that  the  possession  of 
these  hands  is  the  cause  of  man  being  of  all 
animals  the  most  intelligent.  But  it  is  more 
rational  to  suppose  that  his  endowment  with 
hands  is  the  consequence  rather  than  the 
cause  of  his  superior  intelligence.  For  the 
hands  are  instruments  or  organs,  and  the  in- 
variable plan  of  nature  in  distributing  the 
organs  is  to  give  each  to  such  animal  as  can 
make  use  of  it;  nature  acting  in  this  matter  as 
any  prudent  man  would  do.  .  .  .  We  must  con- 
clude that  man  does  not  owe  his  superior  in- 
telligence to  his  hands,  but  his  hands  to  his 
superior  intelligence."  ^* 

Modern  biology  finds  other  factors  entering 
this  problem,  which  is  part  of  a  large  contro- 
versy still.  Our  biologists  might  not  decide 
for  Aristotle  here,  yet  would  be  well  disposed 
toward  another  deduction  which  he  drew  from 
his  teleological  creed:  aberrant  or  occasional 

[68] 


ARISTOTLE'S     BIOLOGY 

characters,  not  common  to  the  species,  are  not 
due  to  a  final  cause;  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
not  useful  or  conducive  to  the  end  which  is  the 
life  of  the  animal. 

"  For  whenever  things  are  not  the  product 
of  Nature  working  upon  the  animal  kingdom 
as  a  whole,  nor  yet  characteristic  of  each 
separate  kind,  then  none  of  these  things  is  such 
as  it  is  or  is  so  developed  for  any  final  cause. 
The  eye,  for  instance,  exists  for  a  final  cause, 
but  it  is  not  blue  for  a  final  cause  unless  this 
condition  be  characteristic  of  the  kind  of 
animal." 

In  other  words,  when  a  character  is  common 
to  all  animals  of  an  established  group,  then  it 
exists  for  a  purpose ;  but  fluctuating  characters 
are  not  so  developed.  Such  characters  have 
"  no  connection  with  the  essence  of  the  animal's 
being,  but  we  must  refer  the  causes  to  the 
material  and  the  motive  principle  or  efficient 
cause,  on  the  view  that  these  things  come  into 
being  by  necessity."  Apparently  Aristotle 
means  that  the  formal  or  final  cause  cannot 
always  control  the  material  and  the  efficient 
causes,  and  variations  from  the  perfect  type 


arise. 


45 


Every  animal  with  its  essential  or  constant 

[69] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND    MEDICINE 

parts,  is  fashioned  by  its  final  cause  through  a 
process  of  generation.  Even  when  mature,  it 
is  not  a  static  being,  but  still  a  vital  process, 
living  its  life,  its  full  life  which  it  had  not 
attained  as  an  embryo.  The  embryo  has  the 
nutritive  soul  or  life,  but  not  the  sensitive 
and  motor  soul  which  comes  at  birth,  and  still 
less  the  rational  soul  which  comes  to  man 
alone. 

"  For  nobody  w^ould  put  down  the  unfertil- 
ized embryo  as  soulless  or  in  every  sense  bereft 
of  life  (since  both  the  semen  and  the  embryo 
of  an  animal  have  every  bit  as  much  life  as  a 
plant).  .  .  .  That  then  they  possess  the  nutri- 
tive soul  is  plain.  ...  As  they  develop,  they 
also  acquire  the  sensitive  soul,  in  virtue  of 
which  an  animal  is  an  animal.  ...  An  animal 
does  not  become  at  the  same  time  an  animal 
and  a  man  and  a  horse  or  any  other  particular 
animal.  For  the  end  is  developed  last,  and  the 
peculiar  character  of  the  species  is  the  end  of 
the  generation  of  each  individual."  *^  This 
passage  states  a  fundamental  principle  of  em- 
bryology, that  the  general  characters  belong- 
ing to  the  class  or  genus  are  first  displayed  by 
the  embryo,  and  afterwards  the  distinguishing 
characters  of  the  species  to  which  it  belongs, 

[70] 


I) 


47 


!/ 


Aristotle's   biology 

So  the  embryo  has  not  all  the  characters  of  the  f* 
species  from  the  beginning,  nor  does  it  possess 
its  full  endowment  of  soul  or  life,  but  develops  ' 
gradually.  Its  development  continues  after 
birth,  —  the  child  exhibiting  a  larger  propor- 
tion of  generic  animal  qualities,  and  a  less 
proportion  of  those  distinctly  human: 

"  In  the  great  majority  of  animals  there  are 
traces  of  psychical  qualities  or  attitudes,  which 
qualities  are  more  markedly  differentiated  in 
the  case  of  human  beings.  For  just  as  we 
pointed  out  resemblances  in  physical  organs,  so 
in  a  number  of  animals  we  observe  gentleness 
or  fierceness,  courage  or  timidity,  fear  or  confi- 
dence, high  spirit  or  low  cunning,  and  with 
regard  to  intelligence,  something  equivalent  to 
sagacity.  Some  of  these  qualities  in  man,  as 
compared  with  the  corresponding  qualities  in 
animals,  differ  only  quantitatively.  .  .  .  [This] 
will  be  more  clearly  apprehended  if  we  regard 
the  phenomena  of  childhood;  for  in  children 
may  be  observed  the  traces  and  seeds  of  what 
will  one  day  be  settled  psychological  habits, 
though  psychologically  a  child  hardly  differs 
for  the  time  being  from  an  animal;  so  that 
one  is  quite  justified  in  saying  that,  as  regards 
man  and  animals,  certain  psychical  qualities 

[71] 


i 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

are  identical  with  one  another,  whilst  others 
resemble,  and  others  are  analogous  to  each 

other." '' 

It  was  evident  to  Aristotle  that  the  nutritive 
and  motor  life  or  soul  could  not  exist  without 
the  body:  ''  Plainly  those  principles  whose 
activity  is  bodily  cannot  exist  without  a  body, 
e.g.,  walking  cannot  exist  without  feet.  For 
the  same  reason  they  cannot  enter  from  out- 
side  "  But  the  final  problem,  —  "  a  ques- 
tion of  the  greatest  difficulty,"  says  Aristotle, 
—  is:  "  When  and  how  and  whence  is  a  share 
in  reason  acquired  by  those  animals  that  partic- 
ipate in  this  principle?  "  His  answer  is,  that, 
unlike  the  nutritive  and  motor  life,  the  reason, 
the  rational  soul,  alone  enters  from  without  and 
"  alone  is  divine,  for  no  bodily  activity  has  any 
connexion  with  the  activity  of  reason." 

Modern  biological  psychology  might  not 
agree.  Yet  Aristotle's  psychology  was  biolog- 
ical through  and  through.  The  soul  with  him 
was  life;  and  life  in  its  plant  and  animal 
activity  was  in  and  of  the  body  and  insepa- 
rable from  it,  save  that  only  reason,  the  h'gher 
mind  of  man,  was  not  of  the  body,  but  was 
divine.  We  still  ask,  what  is  divine?  What 
is  the  body?     What  is  reason? 

[72] 


Aristotle's    biology 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  some  Aristo- 
telian opinions  bearing  on  the  generation  of 
life  and  its  transmission  of  attributes  to  off- 
spring. He  combated  pangenesis,  the  theory 
that  the  semen  must  come  from  the  whole 
body,  in  order  to  account  for  the  inheritance 
of  S3  many  diverge  individual  resemblances.^^ 
He  was  aware  that  bodily  imperfections  in- 
cidentally acquired  would  not  be  inherited,  like 
congenital  traits.  Yet  he  realized  the  con- 
stitutional effects  arising  from  the  alteration 
of  a  small  part  or  organ:  that  if  animals  "  be 
subjected  to  a  modification  in  minute  organs, 
they  are  liable  to  immense  modifications  in 
their  general  configuration,"  —  a  phenome- 
non noticeable  with  gelded  animals.^^  Hip- 
pocrates had  shown  how  often  trouble  with  one 
organ  worked  a  general  disturbance  of  the 
system.  Aristotle  recognized  also  that  the 
habits  of  animals  are  connected  with  their  main 
functions  of  ''  breeding  and  the  rearing  of 
young,  or  with  procuring  a  due  supply  of  food; 
and  these  habits  are  modified  so  as  to  suit  cold 
and  heat  and  the  variations  of  the  season."  " 
He  has  much  to  say  of  migration  and  hiber- 
nation. 

In  ancient  natural  science  the  manner  of 

[73] 


-^ 

V 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

approach,  and  more  assuredly  the  phraseology, 
may  be  strange  to  us,  and  at  first  sight  seem 
to  represent  exceedingly  fantastic  views.  But 
on  deeper  consideration,  remembering  our  own 
actual  confusion  of  thought  as  to  the  nature 
of  life  and  the  powers  or  qualities  through 
which  living  organisms  are  alive,  sometimes  we 
see  that,  if  we  will  but  change  the  ancient 
phrases  a  little,  we  shall  not  find  the  under- 
lying thought  as  alien  as  it  seemed.  State  the 
ancient  hypotheses  a  little  differently,  give 
them  a  slight  push,  see  them  from  another 
angle,  and  they  will  often  parallel  modern 
conceptions,  themselves  admittedly  unattached 
to  basic  considerations,  and  therefore,  perhaps, 
insecurely  founded.  This  reflection  applies  to 
many  of  the  Hippocratic  concepts,  to  many  a 
view  of  Aristotle  and,  as  we  may  hereafter 
see,  to  the  genially  eclectic  system  of  Galen. 

One  must  not  make  an  evolutionist  of  Aris- 
totle. But  if  the  world  of  plants  and  animals 
was  not  for  him  an  evolution  of  species  in  the 
modern  sense,  he  recognized  most  pregnantly 
its  graded  continuity.  This  unbroken  grada- 
tion pervaded  the  process  of  embryonic  growth, 
as  well  as  the  completed  structure  of  mature 
organs.    Still  more  subtly  it  followed  the  in- 

[74] 


[ 


Aristotle's    biology 

crements  of  soul  or  life,  possessed  by  each 
organism  next  higher  in  the  universal  series. 
Organic  nature  presented  an  ascending  scale. 

If  this  organic  world  was  not  an  evolution 
strictly  speaking,  it  was  not  static.  It  was 
alive,  in  vital  process,  pressing  on  toward  self- 
fulfillment  through  the  purposeful  power  of 
nature.  Each  animal  was  formed  and  con- 
ducted to  its  end  by  the  soul  or  life  which  was 
its  purpose  and  design,  its  final  cause.  In  like 
manner  each  organ  was  adapted  to  its  function. 
The  plastic  power  of  serviceableness,  of  utility 
and  use,  the  formation  and  existence  of  all 
parts  as  means  to  ends,  with  Nature  ever  work- 
ing toward  an  end  and  doing  nothing  vainly,  — 
these  convictions  were  launched  by  the  great 
Stagyrite  upon  the  mighty  roles  they  were  to 
play  in  all  the  subsequent  thinking  of  man- 
kind. For  "  barren  virgins,"  final  causes  were 
to  have  a  large  progeny! 

The  principles  of  Aristotle  are  not  dead. 
Changed  scarcely  in  form,  conceptions  of  the 
vital  power  of  Nature  have  ever  filled  the 
minds  of  men  and  still  live  in  the  minds  of 
those  men  of  science  for  whom  mechanics  and 
chemistry  cannot  explain  the  world  of  life. 
Specific  teleological  explanations  of  function 

[75] 


/ 


h 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

are  easily  overthrown;  and  such,  generically, 
may  be  doomed.  Yet  life  remains,  very  form- 
ative, apparently  still  purposeful,  still  tending 
toward  self-fulfillment.  The  vital  principle  is 
utterly  wonderful  and  elusive,  a  will-o'-the- 
wisp,  and  yet  assuredly  there.  Anatomists, 
physiologists,  biologists,  even  physicists,  are 
not  quite  without  it.  Some  among  them  crave 
such  an  explanatory  principle  "  to  save  the 
phenomena!  "  Though  it  lead  into  swamps 
of  mysticism,  people  will  not  give  it  up  and  be 
satisfied  with  mechanics  and  chemistry.  The 
fact  of  life  is  the  prime  organic  reality:  it  is 
still  utterly  wonderful  and  elusive,  and  yet 
assuredly  there.  While  biology  today  works 
largely  with  mechanical  and  chemical  data, 
and  uses  mechanistic  and  chemical  hypotheses, 
the  majority  of  biologists  recognize  that  such 
data  and  such  principles  do  not  afford  a  suffi- 
cient explanation  or  description  of  living 
organisms. 

Seeing  that  chemical  and  mechanistic  for- 
mulae give  no  real  picture  of  the  organism, 
many  biologists  still  think  that  no  real  picture 
of  it  can  be  reached  through  such  channels 
exclusively.  There  is  still  much  Aristote- 
lianism  in  modern  physiology.    As  Aristotle 

[76] 


Aristotle's   biology 

held  that  the  material  and  moving  causes  yield 
no  adequate  conception  of  the  organism,  so 
biology  today  incLnes  to  hold  that  no  adequate 
description  of  the  living  organism  can  be 
framed  in  categories  of  "  matter  "  and 
"  energy." 

Phrases  change;  and  thinking  takes  a  new 
direction  from  the  new  phrase  and  seems  to 
flow  in  untried  channels.  The  old  phrase  be- 
comes an  alien.  Few  of  us  today  could  bring 
oui  selves  to  accept  eo  nomine  the  \pvrjxy — ^^^ 
soul  or,  if  one  will,  the  organic  life  in  its 
ascending  scale,  —  as  the  entelechy,  to  wit, 
"  the  form  or  actuality  of  a  natural  body 
having  in  it  the  capacity  of  life."  More 
specifically,  the  \pyi'n  is  the  "  first  entelechy," 
or  actuality,  standing  as  knowledge  stands  to 
the  exercise  of  knowledge  in  speculation. 
This  "  soul  "  is  the  formative  principle  of  the 
body  and  the  body's  end  or  final  cause,  even 
as  speculative  activity  (  to  Becjpelv )  is  the 
soul's  final  end. 

Such  statements  are  not  of  our  time.  Yet 
perhaps  they  are  not  so  far  from  our  intel- 
lectual purposes.  Do  we  not  think  that  all  the 
sciences,  including  those  having  to  do  with 
organisms,  contribute  to  the  soul  which  is  life, 

[77] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 


and  indeed  the  highest  life  which  is  of  the 
mind?  This  is  the  Aristotelian  view,  and  one 
properly  belonging  to  a  man  who  saw  life 
whole  and  realized  the  splendor  of  its  mani- 
festations, beyond  the  fields  of  science,  in  art 
and  literature,  in  tragedy  and  epic  poetry/ 
The  "  end  "  of  the  body  is  the  human  person- 
ality made  up  not  only  of  its  intellectual 
strainings,  but  of  its  nobler  impulses  and  more 
sublime  emotions,  the  sense  of  holiness  and 
beauty  and  other  unanalyzable  things  of 
human  experience. 

And  as  for  the  example  of  Aristotle,  though 
he  be  prone  to  leap  to  principles  from  insuffi- 
cient grounds,  and  though  his  methods  were  not 
those  of  modern  scientific  verification,  s^ill 
the  largeness  and  penetration  of  h?s  views,  his 
constant  envisaging  of  each  detail  as  part  of  a 
greater  living  whole,  his  insistence  ui)nn  the 
ultimate  bearings  of  each  fact,  all  this  still 
has  at  least  some  echo  of  inspiration  even  for 
a  time  when  the  vast  complexity  of  research 
forces  most  scholars,  as  well  as  scientists,  into 
a  sort  of  rodent  specialism.  Before  him  no 
one  had  so  grandly  and  so  profoundly  seen  the 
organism  as  a  whole  and  as  a  coordination  of 
parts,  and  few  men  since  his  time. 

[781 


Aristotle's   biology 

Aristotle's  work  on  Plants  is  not  extant.  To 
judge  from  the  passages  touching  this  subject, 
which  are  scattered  through  his  other  works," 
his  botanical  observations  were  less  penetrat- 
ing than  his  zoological.  Yet  it  is  not  well  to 
judge  him  from  these  fragments,  when  his 
main  work  is  lost.  We  pass  at  once  to  the 
writings  of  his  but  slightly  younger  disciple, 
Theophrastus. 

The  latter's  Enquiry  Into  Plants''^  is  the 
great  classical  botany,  and  is  more  clearly 
written  and  better  put  together  than  his  De 
Causis  Plant  arum.''*  No  more  than  Aristotle 
himself,  is  Theophrastus  to  be  taken  as  the  first 
botanist.  Much  thought  had  already  been  de- 
voted to  plant  life  and  to  the  medical  properties 
of  plants,  for  instance,  by  the  Hippocratic 
school.  His  work  is  far  from  primitive,  yet 
the  author  still  wanders  in  a  maze,  since  he 
has  not  reached  a  satisfactory  or,  so  to  speak, 
"  natural "  system  of  classification.  Here 
Greek  botany  remained  behind  Greek  zoology, 
and  one  may  say  at  once  that  the  Enquiry  Into 
Plants  has  by  no  means  the  philosophical 
interest  of  Aristotle's  works  on  zoology,  nor 
is  it  as  suggestive  or  useful  for  the  modern  stu- 
dent.    Indeed,  the  view  of  at  least  one  able 

[79] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

historian  of  botany  would  seem  to  be  that  the 
botanical  ideas  of  both  master  and  pupil  had 
not  an  altogether  favorable  effect  upon  the 
progress  made  by  that  science,  say,  from 
the  sixteenth  century  onwards.'^ 

Theophrastus  would  not  have  been  the  pupil 
of  his  master  had  he  not  been  impressed  with 
the  luring  analogies  and  even  continuities  ob- 
served by  Aristotle,  between  the  vegetable  and 
animal  kingdoms.  In  fact  these  observed  — 
or  ill-observed  —  resemblances  or  analogies 
not  infrequently  led  him  astray,  whatever 
bread±  of  view  they  gave  him. 

For  example:  "The  primary  and  most 
important  parts,  which  are  also  common  to 
most  [plants],  are  these,  root,  stem,  branch, 
twig;  these  are  the  parts  into  which  we  might 
divide  the  plant,  regarding  them  as  members, 
corresponding  to  the  members  of  animals;  for 
each  of  these  is  distinct  in  character  from  the 
rest,  and  together  they  make  up  the  whole."  ^® 

He  saw,  however,  that ''  we  must  not  assume 
that  in  all  respects  there  is  complete  cor- 
respondence between  plants  and  animals.  And 
that  is  why  the  number  also  of  parts  is  inde- 
terminate; for  a  plant  has  the  power  of  growth 
in  all  its  parts,  inasmuch  as  it  has  life  in  all  its 

[80] 


Aristotle's   biology 

parts;  wherefore  we  should  regard  them  not 
for  what  they  are  but  for  what  they  are  about 
to  be."  " 

Theophrastus  realizes  the  intricate  com- 
plexity of  his  subject  and  that  a  true  classifi- 
cation of  plants  is  beyond  him:  "  In  fact  your 
plant  is  a  thing  various  and  manifold,  and  so 
it  is  difficult  to  describe  in  general  terms;  in 
proof  whereof  we  have  the  fact  that  we  can- 
not here  seize  on  any  universal  character  which 
is  common  to  all,  as  a  mouth  and  a  stomach  are 
common  to  all  animals.  .  .  .  For  not  all  plants 
have  root,  stem,  branch,  twig,  leaf,  flower  or 
fruit,  or  again  bark,  core,  fibres,  or  veins;  for 
instance,  fungi  and  truffles;  and  yet  these  and 
such  like  characters  belong  to  a  plant's  essen- 
tial nature.  However  .  .  .  these  characters  be- 
long especially  to  trees,  and  our  classification 
of  characters  belongs  more  particularly  to 
these;  and  it  is  right  to  make  these  the  stand- 
ard, in  treating  of  the  others."  ^® 

With  other  ancient  writers  Theophrastus  was 
much  intrigued  by  conceptions  of  differ- 
ences of  sex  between  plants.  He  did  not 
understand  the  sexual  parts  of  flowers.  With 
reference  to  palms,  he  comes  nearest  to  an  idea 
of  the  process  of  fertilization,  knowing  of  long- 

[81] 


i 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

established  practices  in  their  cultivation.  He 
says  that  the  "  male  "  and  the  "  female  "  have 
been  distinguished  with  all  trees,  ''  the  latter 
being  fruit-bearing,  the  former  barren  in  some 
kinds." '' 

"  With  dates,  it  is  helpful  to  bring  the  male 
to  the  female;  for  it  is  the  male  which  causes 
the  fruit  to  persist  and  ripen.  .  .  .  The  process 
is  thus  performed:  when  the  male  palm  is  in 
flower,  they  at  once  cut  off  the  spathe  on  which 
the  flower  is,  just  as  it  is,  and  shake  the  bloom 
with  the  flower  and  the  dust  over  the  fruit  of 
the  female,  and,  if  this  is  done  to  it,  it  retains 
the  fruit  and  does  not  shed  it."  ®° 

Without  following  Theophrastus  further,  I 
will  borrow  a  summary  of  his  botanical  achieve- 
ments, or  rather  of  his  position,  from  one  more 
competent  than  myself: 

"  I.  He  distinguished  the  external  organs 
of  plants,  naming  them  in  regular  sequence 
from  root  to  fruit,  and  attained  in  many  cases 
to  a  really  philosophical  distinction. 

"2.  He  definitely  set  forth  the  leaf  ho- 
mology of  the  perianth  members  of  flowers  but 
attained  to  no  real  knowledge  of  their  sexual 
nature. 

"3.  He  established  the  first  rudiments  of  a 
botanical  nomenclature. 

[82] 


iii 


Aristotle's   biology 

"  4.  He  watched  the  development  of  seeds 
and  was  able  to  some  extent  to  distinguish  be- 
tween dicotyledons  and  monocotyledons. 

"5.  He  established  a  relationship  between 
structure  and  habits,  and  approaches  the  con- 
ception of  geographical  distribution. 

"  6.  He  saw  the  need  for  a  general  classifi- 
cation of  plants  and  made  some  attempt  at  a 
system,  though  he  failed  to  produce  one  which 
was  in  fact  workable. 

"  7.  He  perceived  a  general  relation  be- 
tween structure  and  junction  in  plants,  and 
thus  laid  the  basis  of  scientific  botanyj 


>f  61 


[83] 


IV.    PROGRESS  IN  ANATOMY  AND 

MEDICINE 

IT  IS  by  an  easy  transition  that  we  turn 
from  biology  to  medicine,  from  pure 
science  inspired  by  the  sheer  desire  to 
know  and  account  for  living  organisms,  to  the 
healing  art,  which  may  be  also  scientific, 
though  led  by  practical  beneficent  intent. 
The  transition  is  the  easier  because  we  are  in 
the  later  fourth  and  the  third  centuries  before 
Christ,  the  most  brilliant  scientific  age  of 
Greece,  though  Aristotle  lived  no  longer. 
Medicine  in  the  Alexandrian  school,  led  by 
Herophilus  and  Erasistratus,  was  supported  by 
the  now  veritable  sciences  of  anatomy  and 
physiology. 

And  of  their  works  only  scattered  fragments 
have  survived!  Admirable  as  these  men  were, 
we  must  remember  that  we  are  not  engaged 
upon  a  history  of  Greek  medicine  or  biology, 
but  are  thinking  of  the  value  to  the  moderns 
of  what  the  Greeks  accomplished.  Therefore 
we  must  occupy  ourselves  chiefly  with  those 

[84] 


i 


PROGRESS     IN     ANATOMY 

works  which  have  survived,  as  the  direct 
vehicles  of  the  ancient  heritage;  and  such, 
above  all,  are  the  works  of  the  Hippocratics, 
of  Aristotle  and  of  Galen.  Hence  we  pass  by 
many  men,  brave  and  good,  with  but  slight 
mention.  Our  present  task  is  to  trace  the 
currents  of  medicine  and  its  supporting  sciences 
through  the  later  Greek  and  best  Roman 
periods  till  they  are  gathered  up  into  the  en- 
cyclopaedic system  of  Galen  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  second  century  after  Christ.^^ 

In  the  third  century  before  Christ,  Alex- 
andria presented  such  facilities  and  incentives 
for  study  and  investigation  as  had  never  be- 
fore been  brought  together.  The  first  Ptolemies 
formed  a  great  library  covering  all  subjects 
of  study,  and  established  zoological  parks  and 
botanical  gardens.  Their  munificence  enabled 
scholars  and  men  of  science  to  pursue  their, 
studies;  and  mathematics,  astronomy  and 
physics  flourished,  as  well  as  history,  philology, 
and  poetry.  There  were  hospitals  for  the  treat- 
ment and  observation  of  diseases,  and  for  per- 
haps a  century  human  bodies  were  methodi- 
cally dissected.  Possibly  the  Egyptian  custom 
of  opening  the  body  for  embalming  had  dis- 
pelled the  Greek  aversion  to  mutilation  of  the 

[8s] 


§ 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

dead.  But  dissection  of  human  bodies  appears 
to  have  been  stopped  before  the  close  of  the 
second  century  before  Christ,  though  the  dis- 
section of  dead  and  living  animals  continued. 

Herophilus  and  Erasistratus  belong  to  the 
Alexandrian  period,  though  only  the  former 
is  known  to  have  worked  in  Alexandria.  They 
were  born  about  the  year  three  hundred.  The 
reputation  of  Herophilus  has  come  down  to  us 
less  assaulted  than  that  of  Erasistratus,  whom 
Galen  hated  for  his  alleged  mechanical  view  of 
the  action  of  the  human  organs. 

Herophilus  was  at  all  events  the  more 
deferential  in  his  treatment  of  Hippocrates, 
and  this  was  to  be  the  test  of  orthodoxy  in  the 
Greco-Roman  medical  tradition.  He  did  not 
dispute  the  conception  of  the  four  humors,  but 
preferred  to  think  of  four  faculties  as  moving 
the  human  organism,  to  wit,  the  nourishing  fac- 
ulty of  the  liver  and  digestive  oreans,  the  warm- 
ing power  of  the  heart,  the  thinkins;  faculty 
of  the  brain,  and  the  perceptive  faculty  of  the 
nerves.  Above  all,  this  man  relied  upon 
clinical  observation  and  the  results  of  his  dis- 
sections. He  appears  to  have  been  the  first  to 
have  worked  through  the  entire  human 
anatomy.     He   discerned   the  connection  be- 

[86] 


I 

I 

I 


PROGRESS     IN    ANATOMY 

tween  the  brain  and  spinal  cord  and  the  nerves 
which  proceeded  from  these  centres;  also  the 
connection  of  the  digestive  system  with  the 
lacteals;  and  by  the  aid  of  the  clepsydra  he 
made  a  study  of  pulse  variations  as  a  gauge  of 
the  patient's  condition.  Realizing  the  dangers' 
of  medical  theory,  he  fell  back  upon  the  sound 
clinical  methods  of  Hippocrates;  and  like  the 
master,  avoided  the  finely  drawn  distinctions 
of  unproved  diagnoses.  His  own  further  ex- 
perience and  his  greater  knowledge  of  anatomy 
were  brought  to  bear  upon  his  treatment  of 
diseases,  while  he  also  made  improvements  in 
surgery  and  obstetrics.  A  great  and  admi- 
rable figure  this  Herophilus. 

Less  conservative  and  Hippocratic  was 
Erasistratus  (also  a  great  practitioner),  who 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  four  humors 
or  four  anything.  Believing  that  a  general 
knowledge  of  the  human  body  and  its  function- 
ing in  health  was  not  necessarily  of  practical 
use  to  the  physician,  he  tended  to  specialize  in 
his  own  anatomical  researches,  which  were, 
however,  brilliant  in  result.  He  gave  a  better 
description  of  the  liver  and  its  gall  ducts,  and 
for  the  first  time  gave  a  correct  description  of 
the  heart.    He  advanced  the  knowledge  of  the 

[87] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

brain,  and  the  distinctions  between  vessels  and 
nerves,  and  divided  the  motor  from  the  sensory 
nerves,  —  an  immortal  achievement.  His 
autopsies  extended  the  knowledge  of  patho- 
logical conditions  of  the  internal  organs. 

Mechanical   views  prevailed   in   his  physi- 
ology, in  which  Nature's  horror  vacui  played 
a   leading   role.     For   him,    the   body,   com- 
pounded of  atoms,  was  vivified  by  warmth 
from  without:   his  physiology   felt   the  need 
of   some   explanatory   principle   like   oxygen. 
The  source  of  organic  energy  was  two-fold,  the 
blood  propelled   through  the  veins,  and  the 
pneuma  "  which  is  the  energy  carrier  and  dom- 
inates all  vital  phenomena.     Renovation  of 
the  pneuma  is  brought  about  through  respira- 
tion, whereby  air  penetrates  into  the  left  side 
of  the  heart  through  the  pulmonary  vein.    Thus 
two  varieties  of  pneuma  result,  of  which  one 
(the    vital    pneuma)    is    propelled    into    the 
arteries,  its  function  being  to  regulate  vegeta- 
tive processes  throughout  the  body;  whilst  the 
other  (soul-pneuma)  has  the  brain  as  its  goal, 
whence  it  effects  movement  and  sensation  by 
way    of    the   nervous    system"    (Neuburger, 
p.  182).    One  sees  that  Erasistratus  was  kept 
from  recognizing  the  circulation  of  the  blood 

[88] 


f 


I 


PROGRESS     IN     ANATOMY 

only  by  the  persistent  ancient  error  that  the 
arteries  carried,  not  blood,  but  air. 

He  conceived  illness  as  resulting  from  the 
loading  of  the  parts  of  the  organism  with  in- 
sufficiently digested  food-matter;  which  pre- 
vented the  organism  from  functioning.  This 
made  a  condition  of  ''  plethora,"  from  which 
resulted  the  various  sicknesses.  Thus  he  re- 
garded fever  (which  he  did  not  consider  in 
itself  a  special  disease,  but  a  symptom)  as  re- 
sulting from  a  stoppage  of  the  circulation  of 
the  pneuma  in  the  large  arteries,  due  to  the 
intrusion  of  blood  from  overloaded  veins.  He 
sought  to  remove  the  "  plethora  "  as  the  cause 
of  the  disease;  but  did  not  concern  himself 
in  practice  with  the  remoter  causes  of  the 
plethora  itself.  Thus  his  diagnosis  was  local 
and  special, —  "  Cnidian  "  indeed,  — and  did 
not  follow  the  larger  and  far-reaching  lines  of 
the  Hippocratic  prognosis. 

It  may  be  supposed  that  the  therapeutic 
principles  of  Erasistratus  did  not  lead  practi- 
tioners to  apply  the  growing  knowledge  of 
anatomy  to  the  cure  of  disease.  The  applica- 
tion was  too  baffling.  Yet  the  rivalry  between 
his  school  and  that  of  Herophilus  brought  the 
practice  of  medicine  to  its  zenith  in  the  years 

[89] 


1 

I 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

immediately  following  the  death  of  the  two 
masters.  Soon,  however,  tendencies  to  simplify 
principles  and  practice  intervened ;  and  practi- 
tioners were  ready  enough  to  disburden  them- 
selves of  useless  knowledge. 

Either  through  legitimate  descent  or  from 
reaction,  divergent  medical  attitudes  became 
apparent.  One  must  not,  however,  infer  such 
opposite  practices  as  the  opposing  names  of 
these  medical  sects  might  seem  to  indicate,  for 
they  had  much  in  common  and  tended  to  ex- 
emplify Greek  temperance  and  reasonableness 
in  the  treatment  of  patients.  Whatever  was 
the  theoretical  position  of  his  school,  "  there 
were  for  the  wiser  Greek  physician  three 
factors  of  safety:  he  was  free  from  magic;  he 
was  a  master  of  hygiene;  and,  whatever  his 
abstract  notions,  he  never  forgot  to  treat  the 
individual.^'     (Allbutt.) 

Naturally  the  various  phases  of  Greek 
medical  theory  were  colored,  temperamentally, 
by  the  current  attitudes  of  Greek  philosophy 
toward  nature  and  human  life  and  man's  knowl- 
edge of  the  same.  So  completely  had  Greek 
natural  philosophy  boxed  the  compass  of  pos- 
sible opinion,  that  no  medical  theory  could 
avoid  adopting  as  its  ultimate  base  some  recog- 

[90] 


4 


PROGRESS     IN     ANATOMY 

nized  philosophic  view  of  the  constitution  of 
the  world  and  of  man,  its  denizen;  for  instance, 
the  atomism  of  Democritus  or  some  other 
philosopher's  opinions  as  to  the  psyche  or 
pneuma. 

There  was  a  school  of  regular  sceptics  in 
Alexandrian   times,  and  scepticism   regarding 
philosophic  or  scientific  knowledge  was  fre- 
quent beyond  their  company.     Many  physi- 
cians  were   inclined   to   be  sceptical   of   any 
medical  theory.  This  inclination  promoted  em- 
piricism and  electicism  in  medicine.     There 
arose  a  definite  school  of  so-called  Empirics,  a 
name  of  their  own  choosing.    Although  reject- 
ing theories  as  to  the  nature  of  disease,  they 
were  not  casual  experimenters  with  likely  or 
foolish  remedies.     But  there  had  been  enough 
school-talk  and  argument;  cures  did  not  lie  in 
such   discussion.     The   practitioner's    efficacy 
was  to  be  gained  from  his  own  observations  and 
even  experiments,  made  with  due  consideration 
of  the  clinical  experience  recorded  by  others. 
If  the  case  was  novel,  the  analogies  of  not  too 
dissimilar  cases  might  apply.     There  were  good 
surgeons   among   these   Empirics,    who   were 
adding  their  own   experience  to  the  general 
store. 

[91] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

In  the  last  pre-Christian  centuries  Greek 
medicine  reached  Rome.    The  native  Roman 
practice  had  been  of  the  homeliest,  and  accom- 
panied always  with  a  dose  of  superstition.     For 
our  purpose  it  is  quite  negligible.    But  some 
of  the  Latins,  in  medicine  as  well  as  literature, 
were  capable  of  learning.    Such  a  one  was  the 
exceedingly  intelligent  Celsus  who,  m  the  first 
half  of  the  first  Christian  century,  composed 
or  translated  an  admirable  hand-book  of  medi- 
cine and  surgery.    Whatever  the  sources  of  his 
materials  were,  he  was  a  man  of  sense  and  dis- 
crimination, and  wrote  a  Latin  that  assured  his 
book  an  enthusiastic  reception  with  the  Hu- 
manists  when   it   was   re-discovered   in   the 
fifteenth  century.    It  was  printed  at  Florence 
in  the  year  1478,  before  the  works  of  either 
Galen  or  Hippocrates. 

Celsus  knew  the  history  of  medicine,  and  m 
his  Introduction  aptly  describes  the  sects  of  his 
time  He  speaks  of  the  Empirics,  who  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  remote  and  hidden 
causes  of  disease,  seeing  that  men  always  had 
differed  regarding  them;  only  the  obvjous 
causes  were  to  be  considered  and  treated.  The 
Empirics  were  interested  in  the  cure  rather 
than  in  the  cause.   Opposed  to  them  were  those 

[92] 


PROGRESS     IN    ANATOMY 

more  dogmatic  doctors  who  were  not  happy 
unless  they  could  understand  the  ratio  of  men's 
bodies  and  of  their  disturbances.  They  pro- 
fessed a  rational  medicine  and  held  it  neces- 
sary to  understand  the  antecedent  and  obscure, 
as  well  as  the  palpable,  causes  of  the  disease, 
and  insisted  upon  a  knowledge  of  anatomy. 
In  their  opinion  those  who  best  knew  the  con- 
stitution of  the  body  and  the  causes  of  disease 
had  the  best  chance  to  effect  a  cure.  Ex- 
perience was  important,  but  must  always  be 
approached  through  the  ratio  of  things. 

Then  Celsus  speaks  of  those  who  adhered 
to  the  methodum,  the  simple  but  sufficient  way, 
which  was  in  fine  a  rather  Roman  simplifi- 
cation of  Greek  theory,  especially  of  the  atomic 
theory  and  its  application  to  the  constitution 
and  diseases  of  the  human  body.  In  general 
—  and  the  Methodists  preferred  generaliza- 
tions to  the  specific  knowledge  which  was  more 
difficult  —  diseases  are  due  to  a  condition  of 
undue  tension  or  rigidity  in  the  body,  or  on 
the  other  hand  to  excessive  relaxation.  In  the 
first  case,  the  pores  between  the  atoms  are 
clogged,  and  in  the  second  they  are  too  loose 
and  open.  The  theory  was  elastic  and  the 
treatment  reasonable,  consisting  in  warm  baths 

[93] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

and  other  relaxing  or  invigorating  measures  as 
the  case  seemed  to  require. 

Expressing  his  own  opinion,  Celsus  decides 
for  a  middle  course,  whereby  medicine  should 
rely  upon  experience  rationally:  let  one  treat 
the  evident  causes  of  the  disease,  and  as  for  the 
remote,  meditate  on  them.  Students  should 
learn  anatomy  from  the  bodies  of  the  dead  and 
from  study  of  living  and  wounded  men.  The 
surgical  portions  of  Celsus's  handbook  are 
particularly  good. 

Theories  sat  rather  lightly  on  these  excellent 
practitioners  of  the  Greco-Roman  time,  who 
might  call  themselves  by  one  name  or  another. 
This  remark  applies  to  members  of  the  so- 
called  ''  Pneumatic  "  School,  who  were  gen- 
erally eclectic,  adopting  the  best  features  of 
medical  practice  in  the  second  half  of  the  first 
century.    They   were   affected   by   the   Stoic 
physics,  in  which  borrowed  materials  filled  out 
a  system  novel  in  form.     Accepting  the  old 
working  elements,  they  found  the  life-giving 
principle  to  be  the  "  Pneuma/'  like  unto  air 
and  breath.     It  is  innate,  yet  constantly  re- 
newed through  breathing,  and  circulates  with 
the  blood  through  the  arteries  and  veins  to  all 
parts  of  the  body,  — the  arteries  conveying 

[94] 


PROGRESS     IN     ANATOMY 

more  pneumaj  and  the  veins  more  blood. 
Pneuma  vivifies  the  body,  and  makes  it  a 
living  unity,  carries  on  the  energies  of  growth 
and  reproduction,  as  well  as  of  sensation,  de- 
sire, and  thought.  The  normal  condition  and 
proper  tovos  or  tension  of  the  pneuma  means 
health,  and  this  is  indicated  by  the  pulse; 
while  sickness  springs  from  disorder  of  the 
pneuma,  due  to  irregularities  of  the  warm  and 
cold  or  dry  and  moist  elements,  and  the  conse- 
quent morbid  excess  of  one  or  the  other  of  the 
humors. 

While  these  "  Pneumatics "  rejected  the 
fundamental  theory  of  the  Methodists,  they 
availed  themselves  of  their  treatment  of  dis- 
ease, and  drew  upon  all  the  best  medical 
knowledge  of  the  time.  They  were  wise 
physicians,  following  many  a  precept  of  Hip- 
pocrates, and  efficient  surgeons.  One  among 
them,  Archigenes,  a  contemporary  of  Trajan, 
seems  to  have  been  extraordinarily  resourceful 
and  inventive:  "what  we  need  is  to  be  fertile 
in  expedients  not  to  be  always  attending  to  the 
writings  of  other  people,"  said  he. 

Says  Sir  Clifford  Allbutt:  "The  ancient 
Greeks  shrank  from  mutilation;  and  amputa- 
tion, mentioned  by  the  Hippocratean  physi- 

[95] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

dans  only  in  gangrene  as  a  subsidiary  aid, 
seems,  even  in  Alexandria,  to  have  made  no 
great  progress;  for  Celsus  also  regarded  it  as 
a  last  sad  resource  in  gangrene:  yet  by  the 
time  of  Trajan,  under  Archigenes,  amputation 
had  become  a  recognized  procedure  for  ulcers, 
growths,  injuries  and  even  deformities.  The 
limb  to  be  removed  was  bandaged  to  expel 
the  blood,  and  a  tourniquet  was  placed  above 
the  line  of  severance;  or  sometimes  the  chief 
blood-vessels  were  first  cut  down  and  tied,  and 
the  smaller  tied  or  twisted,  during  the  opera- 
tion —  ^  transfixing  them  with  a  sharp  hook 
and  twisting  them  round  and  round  and  clos- 
ing them  by  this  twisting  '  —  a  proceeding  of 
which  there  is  no  trace  in  Hippocrates,  nor 
apparently  in  the  earlier  Alexandria.  These 
good  methods  were  afterwards  obliterated  by 
the  bad  fashion  of  the  searing-iron."  ^^ 

From  the  side  of  philosophy  as  well  as 
physiology,  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  the 
Pneumatic  School  represents  a  stage  in  the 
mind's  search  for  a  vital  principle  to  account 
for  the  living  man,  and  more  specifically  to 
account  for  the  animal  heat,  which  is  a  clearly 
vital  quality,  and  yet  indicative  of  ill  when- 
ever it  rises  above   a  certain  degree,   as  in 

[96] 


I 


PROGRESS     IN     ANATOMY 

fevers,  or  whenever  it  falls  below,  as  at  the 
approach  of  death.  From  Homer  downward, 
the  breath  of  man  suggested  itself  as  the  vital 
principle  or  its  vehicle.  How  about  its  re- 
lation to  the  body's  heat?  This  perplexing 
question  brought  great  confusion.^'  Air  seems 
both  hot  and  cold;  and  any  one  can  blow  hot 
or  cold  with  the  same  mouth.  Was  the  vital 
and  necessary  breathing  of  the  air,  in  and 
out,  a  cooling  or  a  warming  of  the  body? 
Opinions  wavered  and  contradicted  each  other 
for  centuries.  Apparently  —  the  whole  matter 
is  exceedingly  obscure  —  the  early  physicists 
with  Hippocrates  were  ranged  on  the  side  of 
warming,  and  Aristotle  with  his  great  influence 
on  the  cooling  side.  Nearly  two  thousand 
years  later,  Harvey  remained  perplexed. 
After  his  death,  the  search  was  carried  on  more 
vigorously  for  some  needed  and  explanatory 
process  analogous  to  the  burning  of  combust- 
ible things,  in  fine,  for  a  process  of  combustion. 
The  goal  was  reached  through  the  discovery  of 
oxygen  and  the  slow-won  knowledge  of  its 
functions  in  the  human  economy. 


[97] 


I 


V.    THE  FINAL   SYSTEM:    G.\LEN 

GALEN  represents  the  final  catholic 
and  systematic  interpretation  of 
Greek  medicine  and  its  relation  to 
the  sciences  of  which  it  was  or  might  make 
part.  He  was  more  than  a  great  eclectic,  for 
his  work  was  a  constructive  synthesis,  with 
elements  added  which  were  the  result  of  his 
own  observations  and  experiments. 

Like  other  men  he  was  fashioned  and  driven 
by  his  education,  into  which  entered  the  in- 
tellectual past  of  himself  and  his  contem- 
poraries. But,  unlike  any  other  of  his  time, 
his  genius  was  so  universal  that  he  was  im- 
pelled and  aided  throughout  his  whole  career 
by  the  entire  intellectual  past,  rather  than  by 
one  or  more  of  its  component  interests  or 
typical  tendencies. 

The   sciences   which    might   be   related   to 
medicine  met  in  him,  with  some  branches  of 
discipline  with  which  physicians  trouble  them- 
selves no  longer.     From  his  education   and 
\  still  more  through  his  talents  and  temperament, 

[98] 


THE  FINAL  SYSTEM:  GALEN 

he  was  a  logician  and  a  rhetorician,  a  master 
of  speech  and  composition.  He  was  instructed 
in  all  branches  of  natural  philosophy  or  science. 
A  physicist  in  his  ultimate  considerations  of 
the  constituents  of  the  human  organism  as  a 
part  of  Nature,  he  was  far  more  actively  a 
biologist  in  his  investigation  of  the  same.  His 
writings  show  medicine  as  part  of  biology. 
And  indeed  his  treatment  of  medicine  as  the 
centre  of  a  larger  whole  indicates  the  Greek 
unity  of  science,  a  unity  afterwards  to  be  lost, 
but  today  gradually  reviving  in  the  thought  of 
those  who  see  that  the  formal  barriers  between 
the  sciences  are  vicious  obstructions. 

Hippocrates  regarded  medicine  as  the  heal- 
ing art.  Although  in  fact  he  proceeded  scien- 
tifically, following  the  method  of  observation 
and  induction,  and  necessarily  making  use  of 
working  hypotheses,  nevertheless  as  far  as 
possible  he  set  himself  against  theory.  He 
refused  to  base  medical  practice  upon  theories 
as  to  the  constitution  of  the  world  and  man, 
and  protested  against  permitting  such  to  divert 
the  practitioner  from  the  teaching  of  his  ex- 
perience. The  rival  school  of  Cnidus  may 
have  tried  to  be  more  scientific,  in  the  sense 
of  seeking  to  conform  their  practice  to  basic 

[99] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

hypotheses  concerning  man  and  his  diseases. 
It  was  not  without  its  lasting  influence;  one 
may  perhaps  regard  Erasistratus  as  its  final 
great  descendant.  But,  fortunately,  the  Hip- 
pocratic  principles  triumphed  at  the  time^  and 
appear  to  have  remained  dominant  during 
those  earlier  periods  when  occupation  with 
theory  would  have  warped  and  checked  the 
progress  of  the  healing  art. 

Between  the  time  of  Hippocrates  and  the 
year  130  a.d.,  when  Galen  saw  the  light,  well- 
nigh  six  centuries  had  passed.  Long  and  well- 
husbanded  experience  had  improved  medicine 
and  surgery.  The  knowledge  of  the  human 
body  had  been  greatly  added  to,  and  the  passing 
theories  as  to  the  nature  and  causes  of  disease 
had  not  seriously  obstructed  a  continuous  im- 
provement in  the  treatment  of  disease  and 
bodily  injuries.  Rather,  one  may  think  that 
the  rivalry  of  the  different  schools,  composed 
of  the  nominal  adherents  of  different  theories, 
had  prevented  dogmatism  and  narrowness  in 
practice. 

Galen  flourished  in  the  second  half  of  the 
second  century  a.d.,  dying  in  the  year  201. 
Greek  or  Greco-Roman  faculties  of  observation 
were  becoming  less  vigorous  and  the  atmos- 

[  100] 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

phere  of  religion  and  religious  philosophy, 
which  belonged  to  the  dawning  of  a  different 
era,  was  already  tending  to  becloud  man's 
vision  of  the  natural  world.  Further  advance 
in  exact  science  could  not  be  expected,  nor  was 
medicine  likely  to  gain  much  more  from  the 
clear  and  undeflected  observation  of  its  practi- 
tioners.   Its  ancient  course  was  well-nigh  run. 

Magnificently  was  it  to  be  concluded  in  the 
achievements  of  Galen's  genius.  He  was  born 
at  Pergamus  in  Asia  Minor.  An  intelligent 
father  took  care  that  he  received  the  best  edu- 
cation that  the  town  afforded  in  grammar  and 
rhetoric,  as  well  as  mathematics,  natural 
knowledge  and  philosophy.  One  may  assume 
that  the  varied  stores  of  ancient  philosophy 
and  knowledge  had  been  rifled  by  this  prodi- 
gious learner,  when  at  the  age  of  seventeen 
he  decided  to  devote  himself  to  medicine. 
Pergamus  afforded  good  masters  and  opportu- 
nities for  practice,  especially  in  its  widely 
sought  Asclepieion,  where  patients  were  treated 
skillfully,  and  sometimes  cured  by  miracle. 
Galen's  readiness  to  recognize  miracles  was 
rather  significant  of  the  time  and  ominously 
prophetic. 

Having  drained  the  opportunities  of  Per- 

[lOl] 


f 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

gamus,  he  set  out  to  extend  his  knowledge  at 
the  chief  seats  of  medical  learning  —  at 
Smyrna,  at  Corinth,  and  above  all  at  Alex- 
andria. After  nine  years  he  returned  a 
finished  physician,  already  noted  for  his  skill 
and  his  authorship  of  anatomical  and  physiolog- 
ical treatises.  Again  he  left  his  native  town, 
this  time  for  Rome,  where  he  won  fame  and 
enmity  alike,  and  the  patronage  of  the  great. 
Perhaps  his  enemies  drove  him  thence,  or  the 
plague  may  have  hastened  his  departure  for 
the  east:  not  an  heroic  soul  was  this  extraor- 
dinary Galen.  Emperors  called  him  back, 
Lucius  Verus  and  Marcus  Aurelius;  he  came, 
yet  would  not  accompany  the  latter  on  his 
campaign  against  the  Marcomanni,  but  under- 
took the  care  of  the  young  Commodus,  at 
Rome,  —  not  an  absorbing  business.  The  last 
thirty  years  of  his  life  were  devoted  to  medical 
research  and  authorship; — authorship  in- 
deed! he  had  composed  some  four  hundred 
treatises  when  he  died. 

Galen  was  no  condenser!  His  universal 
learning,  his  ready  memory,  the  quick  ranging 
of  his  mind,  his  exhaustless  powers  of  argu- 
ment, his  facile  rhetoric,  conceit  of  himself, 
love  of  belittling  others,  all  piled  up  the  monu- 

[  102  ] 


I) 


THE  FINAL  SYSTEM!  GALEN 

ment  of  his  redundant  compositions;  yet  such 
was  his  skill  and  genius  that  the  monstrous  bulk 
of  his  writings  was  not  for  long  to  obscure  the 
significance  of  their  contents.  After  Aristotle, 
he  was  perhaps  the  greatest  of  the  ancient 
systematizers  of  natural  knowledge.  His  cen- 
tral endeavor  was  to  make  medicine  into 
a  systematic  science;  and,  for  good  or  ill, 
truth  and  error,  he  appears  to  have  accom- 
plished it. 

Medical  practice  and  physical  theory  must 
be  made  into  a  consistent  unity.    To  this  end 
Galen  sought  to  base  the  healing  art  upon  a 
knowledge  of  disease  and  its  causes,  and  to  set 
his  pathology  upon  the  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology of  the  human  organism  in  health.    This 
more   fundamental   knowledge  came   through 
observation  under  the  guidance  of  philosophy, 
logic  and  mathematics.     Himself  a  mathema- 
tician, he  tried  to  apply  the  proofs  of  Euclid 
to  the  results  of  observation  and  experiment. 
He  would  have  the  a  priori  certitudes  of  the 
understanding  as  well  as  the  assurance  of  ex- 
perience.^^   But  alas!  the  demands  of  his  phi- 
losophy distorted  the  perceptions  of  his  senses. 
Moreover,  his  logic  was  more  untiring  than  his 
observation.    Yet  when  he  made  experiments, 

[  103  ] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

as  he  did  frequently,  through  the  vivisection  of 
animals,  it  was  with  masterly  cleverness. 

Unquestionably  Galen's  over-aptness  at  find- 
ing a  purpose  and  use  for  every  organ,  —  a  use 
and  purpose  which  made  the  organ  what  it 
was  —  contributed  to  his  dominance  in  the 
centuries  after  him.  Today  we  are  disposed  to 
find  his  truer  greatness  in  his  investigation  of 
the  physiology  of  animals,  by  vivisection.  For 
example,  although  the  presence  of  some  blood 
in  the  arteries  had  been  sensed  before  him,  he 
would  seem  to  have  been  the  first  to  demon- 
strate it.  He  was  a  great  contributor  to  experi- 
mental physiology,  though  unfortunately  he 
came  at  the  close  of  the  ancient  time,  when  no 
man  was  to  follow  him  to  continue  his  dis- 
coveries.   Says  Dr.  Garrison: 

"  He  was  the  first  to  describe  the  cranial 
nerves  and  the  sympathetic  system,  made  the 
first  experimental  sections  of  the  spinal  cord, 
producing  hemiplegia;  produced  aphonia  by 
cutting  the  recurrent  laryngeal;  and  gave  the 
first  valid  explanation  of  the  mechanism  of 
respiration.  He  showed  that  the  arteries  con- 
tain blood  (by  performing  the  Antyllus  opera- 
tion), and  demonstrated  the  motor  power  of 
the  heart  by  showing  that  the  blood  pulsates 

[  104] 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

between  the  heart  and  a  ligated  artery,  but  not 
beyond  it.  Like  the  Alexandrians,  he  inferred 
that  the  arteries  and  veins  anastomose  through 
certain  invisible  and  extremely  small  vessels. 
He  also  showed  that  an  excised  heart  will  beat 
outside  the  body,  a  common  incident  at  the 
sacrificial  rites,  and  good  evidence  that  its  beat 
does  not  depend  upon  the  nervous  system.  In 
these  matters  Galen  gave  to  medicine  that 
method  of  putting  questions  to  nature  and  of 
arranging  things  so  that  nature  may  answer 
them,  which  we  call  experiments."  ®^ 

In  the  depths  of  his  mind,  Galen  was  seeking 
to  combine  Hippocrates  and  Aristotle.  He 
drew  from  the  former  the  fruitful  conception 
of  the  vital  unity  of  the  human  organism,  vital 
in  its  power  of  living  and  nourishing  itself, 
and  when  sick  or  wounded  of  regaining  its 
normal  state  through  the  vis  medicatrix 
naturae,  the  restoring  power  of  its  own  nature. 
The  human  organism  was  strictly  a  unity:  the 
singleness  of  its  life  could  not  be  divided. 
From  Hippocrates  he  took  also  the  four 
humors,  and,  as  it  were,  from  any  source  one 
chooses,  the  four  elements  of  fire,  water,  earth 
and  air,  and  the  four  primary  physical  qual- 
ities of  cold  and  warm  and  dry  and  moist , 

[105] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

He  drew,  nay  he  drained,  his  teleology  from 
Aristotle,  and,  like  the  Master,  applied  it  to 
every  part  of  the  organic  structure:  Nature 
makes  nothing  without  a  purpose,  and  nothing 
in  vain.  When  Galen  is  considering  the  nature 
and  action  of  an  organ,  or  of  the  body  gen- 
erally, his  mind  passes  quickly  from  the  sheer 
description  of  the  thing,  and  even  from  the 
consideration  of  its  efficient  cause,  and  springs 
forward  to  grasp  its  final  cause  or  purpose: 
therein  lies  the  explanation  of  the  thing,  and 
the  explanation,  nay  the  true  description,  of 
the  function  which  it  is  its  nature  to  fulfill. 
Galen's  passionate  preoccupation  with  the 
purpose  of  a  living  organ,  colors  and  even 
fashions  his  description  both  of  the  organ  itself 
and  of  the  process  through  which  it  performs 
its  function. 

The  function  of  the  body  generally  is  to 
afford  a  setting  for  the  soul  or  life.  The  bearer 
of  ]*fe,  or  of  the  vital  forces  vivifying  the  body 
and  directing  it  to  the  performance  of  its 
functions,  is  the  pneuma.  Entering  with  the 
breath,  it  becomes  threefold:  the  psychic 
pneuma  (or,  in  English,  the  animal  spirits), 
working  in  the  brain  and  through  the  nervous 
system;  the  \iie-pneuma  (or  vital  spirits)  of 

[io6] 


THE  FINAL  SYSTEM:  GALEN 

the  heart  and  arteries;  the  physical  pneuma 
(natural  spirits)  dwelling  in  the  liver,  and 
through  the  veins  making  blood  and  nourishing 
the  body  and  its  growth.  The  liver  draws  its 
supplies  from  the  stomach  and  intestines. 

The  life  of  the  body  fulfills  itself  in  these 
three  functions  of  the  pneuma.  The  various 
parts  —  organs  and  tissues,  solids  and  fluids 
' —  are  thereby  made  into  a  whole,  and  united 
in  their  ultimate  function  of  promoting  the  in- 
dividual's life.  Health  consists  in  their 
cooperation  in  proper  proportions  according  to 
the  age,  sex  and  mode  of  life  of  the  individual. 
Sickness  is  a  disturbance  of  these  proportions 
and  of  this  harmonious  working.  Between 
sickness  and  health  lies  a  condition  of  predis- 
position to  one  or  another  form  of  disease,  due 
to  the  individual's  constitution  or  tempera- 
ment. 

Inception,  increase,  summit,  and  recession 
make  the  four  stages  of  acute  disease.  In 
addition  to  this  rather  Hippocratic  view,  the 
Galenic  treatment  proceeded  from  the  principle 
that  every  disturbance  of  function  necessarily 
implied  a  pathological  affection  of  the  parts 
in  question.  The  physician  first  decides 
whether  the  power  of  the  physis,  or  nature  of 

[107] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

the  body  (a  Hippocratic  conception),  was  of 
itself  able  to  cure  the  part  and  restore  its  func- 
tion. He  acts  only  when  nature  has  proved 
inadequate.  He  should  consider  the  inception 
of  the  disease,  decide  upon  its  causes,  and 
endeavor  to  remove  them  or  prevent  their 
action.  He  should  resort  to  further  counter- 
acting measures  as  the  pronounced  symptoms 
of  the  disease  declare  themselves. 

Galen  conceived  the  physis  as  the  sum  of  the 
powers  which  impel  the  body's  parts  to  perform 
their  functions.  In  the  sick  body  one  or  the 
other  of  these  powers  exceeds  or  is  deficient 
in  its  action.  The  physician's  care  must  first 
of  all  concern  itself  with  the  expelling  power, 
which  produces  the  excretions  and  evacuations 
of  the  healthy  body,  and  in  sickness  expels 
the  matter  of  the  disease.  The  attracting,  re- 
straining and  alterative  powers  are  then  to  be 
investigated;  and  the  skillful  physician  will 
perceive  which  is  defective  or  too  violent,  and 
treat  the  patient  accordingly. 

The  working  principles  of  Galen  are  mainly 
those  of  Hippocrates.  It  is  in  the  endeavor 
to  establish  them  in  science  and  philosophy 
that  Galen  goes  far  beyond  the  man  he  called 
his  master.    In  this  endeavor  he  combined  the 

[108] 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM.*     GALEN 

greater  knowledge  of  the  six  hundred  years' 
experience  with  disease  which  lay  between  him 
and  Hippocrates,  considering  and  weighing 
(not  dispassionately!)  the  views  of  the  leading 
intervening  physicians.  He  was  also  a  brilliant 
investigator  himself,  and  through  his  dissec- 
tions and  vivisections  advanced  the  sciences  of 
anatomy  and  physiology.  Even  here  he  erred, 
not  infrequently,  through  applying  the  anat- 
omy of  pigs  and  apes  to  the  human  body, 
which  he  did  not  dissect.  Beyond  this  he  was 
led,  and  sometimes  astray,  by  his  conviction  of 
the  sufficiency  of  his  medical  theories  and  the 
philosophy  of  nature  on  which  he  sought  to 
base  them.  He  was  over-confident  in  himself 
and  his  knowledge,  and  many  a  pillar  of  his 
medical  temple  was  destined  to  fall.  Yet  the 
great  building  endured  for  fifteen  centuries. 

To  describe  or  sketch  the  contents  of  Galen's 
writings  would  require  a  volume.  They  cover 
medicine,  and,  one  might  say,  biology;  they 
concern  themselves  with  philosophy,  with  psy- 
chology, and  even  with  the  arts.  Many  of  them 
were  great  and  valuable  treatises,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, that  on  The  Places  {or  parts)  Affected. 
It  sets  forth  the  importance  of  reaching  a  clear 
decision  as  to  the  part  affected  and  the  nature 

[  109] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

of  the  trouble,  and  proceeds  on  the  principle 
that  there  can  be  no  disturbance  in  the  function 
without  an  affection  of  the  part.  After  some 
chapters  of  general  consideration,  the  means 
of  making  the  proper  local  diagnosis  through- 
out all  the  parts  of  the  body  are  considered 
successively  and  in  detail. 

Equally  valuable  are  his  treatises  on  Thera- 
peutics and  Hygiene;  and  large  and  important 
compositions  are  devoted  to  the  methods  of  the 
various  medical  sects,  —  Galen  was  a  tremen- 
dous medical  polemicist.  A  famous  treatise  is 
that  of  the  Use  or  Utility,  to  wit,  the  function 
and  purpose,  oj  the  Parts.  Through  its  long 
course,  with  great  detail,  it  seeks  to  exemplify 
and  prove  the  Aristotelian  principle  that 
Nature  makes  nothing  in  vain.  It  demon- 
strates that  the  parts  and  organs  of  the  body 
could  not  be  better  disposed,  and  that  they 
are  perfectly  adapted  to  the  fulfillment  of 
their  functions.  It  discerns  and  would  prove 
the  perfect  harmony  among  the  different  parts. 
There  are  in  it  constant  disquisitions  upon  final 
causes,  references  to  God  and  Nature,  and 
corresponding  diatribes  against  those  who 
accept  the  action  of  chance  and  the  theory  of 
the  atoms. 

[no] 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

The  comparatively  short  but  compendious 
treatise  On  the  Natural  Faculties,'''  that  is  to 
say,  the  powers  inherent  in  the  physis  or 
nature  of  the  human  individual,  reflects  many 
of  Galen's  characteristics,  and  may  be  noticed 
briefly. 

The  ancients,  Galen  for  example,  were  more 
addicted  to  personification  than  ourselves,  who 
have  substituted  processes  for  persons,  thus 
using  a  more  commonplace  word  to  express 
what  is  still  mysterious.  The  "processes  of 
nature "  is  a  common  phrase,  while  Galen 
thinks  of  nature  somewhat  as  an  artist,  accom- 
plishing her  works  by  rixvy],  which  is  art.  The 
human  physis  or  nature  is  endowed  with  its 
own  powers  of  attraction  and  repulsion.  More 
broadly  and  perhaps  profoundly  speaking,  it  is 
alive,  possessed  of  life,  which  is  the  sum  of 
its  natural  powers.  Galen  is  not  far  from 
modern  vitalistic  thinking.^^ 

It  has  been  said  that  there  were  many 
Galens;  and,  indeed,  the  tract  before  us  ex- 
hibits various  intellectual  processes  and 
methods  which  we  should  be  surprised  to  find 
combined  in  any  one  modern  person.  In  it 
Galen  is  biologist  as  well  as  physician.  It 
evinces    penetrating    observation,    with    close 

[III] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

reasoning  on  the  data  of  very  clever  vivisec- 
tion. In  it  Galen  also  is  a  philosopher;  and 
offers  the  reader  much  a  priori  reasoning  and 
sheer  intellectual  construction.  He  is  a  Greek, 
in  love  with  logic,  with  dialectic,  with  reason- 
ing upon  hypotheses.  For  him,  intelligent 
people  are  *'  those  who  understand  the  conse- 
quences of  their  hypotheses";  whereas  we 
should  be  more  apt  to  speak  of  "  those  who 
know  what  they  are  talking  about." 

Galen  is  under  the  necessity  of  finding  names 
and  categories  for  his  thinking.  Sometimes 
with  him  to  formulate  a  statement,  devise  a 
concept,  give  a  satisfactory  name,  is  his  near- 
est approach  to  an  explanation,  almost  equiva- 
lent to  understanding  a  phenomenon  or  process. 
Much  that  he  says  of  the  three  powers  of  gene- 
sis, growth,  and  nutrition  are  his  verbally  satis- 
fying statements  of  what  was,  and  still  is,  es- 
sentially unknown.  Such  statements  are  sops 
to  the  insatiate  reasoning  mind.  Galen  makes 
them  such  as  seem  to  him  to  "  save  the  phenom- 
ena "  in  each  case,  and  also  so  that  they  will 
dovetail;  for  he  is  always  a  system-builder. 
Had  he  known  something  of  chemistry,  he 
would  have  made  his  statements  such  as  would 
"  save  "  other  recondite  phenom.ena.     His  more 

[112] 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

detailed  arguments  sometimes  seem  but  to  am- 
plify his  general  or  introductory  phrases. 

It  is  the  work  of  Nature  to  form  all  the  parts 
of  the  animal  while  still  in  the  womb,  and 
after  birth  to  bring  the  animal  to  its  full  size, 
and  maintain  it.  This  is  a  threefold  effect,  and 
the  activities  are  three,  "  namely  genesis, 
growth,  and  nutrition.  Genesis,  however,  is 
not  a  simple  activity  of  Nature,  but  is  com- 
pounded of  alteration  and  shaping.  That  is  to 
say,  in  order  that  bone,  nerve,  veins,  and  all 
other  [tissues]  may  come  into  existence,  the 
underlying  substance  '"^  from  which  the  animal 
springs  must  be  altered;  and  in  order  that  the 
substance  so  altered  may  acquire  its  appro- 
priate shape  and  position,  its  cavities,  out- 
growths, attachments  and  so  forth,  it  has  to 
undergo  a  shaping  or  formative  process."  '^ 

Then,  proceeding  from  the  partly  false  anal- 
ogy of  the  semen  and  the  seed  cast  into  the 
earth,  he  enlarges  his  descriptive  detail,  with- 
out, of  course,  penetrating  any  further  into  the 
process  itself.  He  next  takes  up  the  faculty  of 
growth,  which  ''  is  one  of  increase  and  expan- 
sion in  length,  breadth  and  thickness  of  the 
solid  parts  of  the  animal  (those  which  have 
been  subjected   to   the  moulding  or  shaping 

[113] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

process).  Nutrition  is  an  addition  to  these 
without  expansion." 

The  faculty  of  growth  is  present  in  the 
embryo,  but  subordinate  to  the  genetic  faculty 
until  birth.  Then,  till  the  animal  has  reached 
its  full  size,  the  faculty  of  growth  dominates 
while  the  alterative  and  nutritive  faculties  act 
as  its  handmaids.  "  What  then,  is  the  property 
of  this  faculty  of  growth?  To  extend  in  every 
direction  that  which  has  already  come  into 
existence,  that  is  to  say,  the  solid  parts  of  the 
body,  the  arteries,  veins,  nerves,  bones,  carti- 
lages, membranes,  ligaments,  and  the  various 
simple  and  homogeneous  coats  of  the  stomach, 
intestines,  arteries,  etc." 

Galen  then  describes  how  children  stretch 
and  blow  up  pigs'  bladders;  but  the  bladders 
get  thinner  as  they  are  expanded.  The  children 
cannot  make  the  bladder  get  bigger,  as  only 
Nature  can,  through  nourishment. 

"  It  will  now,  therefore,  be  clear  to  you  that 
nutrition  is  a  necessity  for  growing  things. 
For  if  such  bodies  were  distended,  but  not  at 
the  same  time  nourished,  they  would  take  on 
a  false  appearance  of  growth,  but  not  a  true 
growth.  And  further,  to  be  distended  in  all 
directions  belongs  only  to  bodies  whose  growth 

[114] 


THE    FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

is  directed  by  Nature;  for  those  which  are 
distended  by  us  undergo  this  distension  in  one 
direction  but  grow  less  in  the  others.  .  .  .  Thus 
Nature  alone  has  the  power  to  expand  a  body  in 
all  directions  so  that  it  remains  unruptured 
and  preserves  completely  its  previous  form." 

As  for  nutrition,  the  third  of  these  great 
faculties:  "When  the  matter  which  flows  to 
each  part  of  the  body  in  the  form  of  nutri- 
ment is  being  worked  up  into  it,  this  activity 
is  nutrition,  and  its  cause  is  the  nutritive 
faculty.  Of  course,  the  kind  of  activity  here 
involved  is  also  an  alteration,  but  not  like  that 
occurring  in  the  stage  of  genesis.  For  in 
[genesis]  something  comes  into  existence  which 
did  not  exist  previously,  while  in  nutrition  the 
inflowing  material  becomes  assimilated  to  that 
which  has  already  come  into  existence.  There- 
fore the  former  kind  of  alteration  has  been 
termed  genesis  and  the  latter  assimilation."  '^ 

Nowadays  this  description  would  be  supple- 
mented, or  superseded,  by  a  description  of  the 
multiplication  of  the  body-cells  in  the  growth 
of  tissue,  both  extra-  and  intra-uterine,  — 
which  we  perceive  and  can  to  some  extent  de- 
scribe, but  still  cannot  account  for,  save  as  a 
power  of  nature. 

[115] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

In  Other  parts  of  his  tract,  Galen  argues 
vigorously  against  what  Erasistratus  and  others 
had  said — and  well  said  —  as  to  the  action 
of  the  bodily  organs  upon  mechanical  prin- 
ciples and  according  to  the  capacities  of  their 
forms.  Galen's  vitalism  carries  him  into  many 
a  false  counter-argument.  His  fundamental 
view  may  be  given  mainly  in  his  words: 

"  Thus  every  hypothesis  of  channels  '^  as 
an  explanation  of  natural  functioning  is  perfect 
nonsense.  For  if  there  were  not  an  inborn 
faculty  given  by  Nature  to  each  one  of 
the  organs  at  the  very  beginning,  then  ani- 
mals could  not  continue  to  live  even  for  a 
few  days.  .  .  .  For  there  is  not  a  single 
animal  which  could  live  or  endure  for  the 
shortest  time  if,  possessing  within  itself  so 
many  different  parts,  it  did  not  employ 
faculties  which  were  attractive  of  what  is 
appropriate,  eliminative  of  what  is  foreign,  and 
alterative  of  what  is  destined  for  nutrition. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  have  these  faculties, 
we  no  longer  need  channels,  little  or  big,  rest- 
ing on  an  unproven  hypothesis,  for  explaining 
the  secretion  of  urine  and  bile,  and  the  con- 
ception of  some  favorable  situation  (in  which 
point  alone  Erasistratus  shows  some  common 

[ii6] 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

sense,  since  he  does  regard  all  the  parts  of  the 
body  as  having  been  well  and  truly  placed  and 
shaped  by  Nature). 

"  But  let  us  suppose  he  remained  true  to  his 
own  statement  that  Nature  is  '  artistic,'  —  this 
Nature  which,  at  the  beginning,  well  and  truly 
shaped  and  disposed  all  the  parts  of  the  animal, 
and,  after  carrying  out  this  function  (for  she 
left  nothing  undone),  brought  it  forward  to 
the  light  of  the  day,  endowed  with  certain 
faculties  necessary  for  its  very  existence,  and, 
thereafter,    gradually    increased    it    until    it 
reached  its  due  size.     If  he  argued  consist- 
ently on  this  principle,  I  fail  to  see  how  he  can 
continue  to  refer  natural  functions  to  the  small- 
ness  or  largeness  of  canals,  or  to  any  other 
similarly  absurd  hypothesis.    For  this  Nature 
which  shapes  and  gradually  adds  to  the  parts 
is   most  certainly  extended  throughout   their 
whole  substance.    Yes,  indeed,  she  shapes  and 
nourishes    and    increases    them    through    and 
through,  not  on  the  outside  only.     For  Prax- 
iteles and  Phidias  and  all  the  other  statuaries 
used  merely  to  decorate  their  material  on  the 
outside,  in  so  far  as  they  were  able  to  touch  it; 
but  its  inner  parts  they  left  unembellished,  un- 
wrought,    unaffected   by   art   or   forethought, 

[117] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

since  they  were  unable  to  penetrate  therein 
and  to  reach  and  handle  all  portions  of  the 
material.  It  is  not  so,  however,  with  Nature. 
Every  part  of  a  bone  she  makes  bone,  every 
part  of  the  flesh  she  makes  flesh,  and  so  with 
fat  and  all  the  rest;  there  is  no  part  which  she 
has  not  touched,  elaborated,  and  embellished. 
Phidias,  on  the  other  hand,  could  not  turn  wax 
into  ivory  and  gold,  nor  yet  gold  into  wax: 
for  each  of  these  remains  as  it  was  at  the 
commencement  and  becomes  a  perfect  statue 
simply  by  being  clothed  externally  in  a  form 
and  artificial  shape.  But  Nature  does  not  pre- 
serve the  original  character  of  any  kind  of 
matter;  if  she  did  so,  then  all  parts  of  the 
animal  would  be  blood,  —  that  blood,  namely, 
which  flows  to  the  semen  from  the  impregnated 
female,  and  which  is,  so  to  speak,  like  the 
statuary's  wax,  a  single  uniform  matter,  sub- 
jected to  the  artificer.  From  this  there  arises 
no  part  of  the  animal  which  is  as  red  and  moist 
[as  blood  is],  for  bone,  artery,  vein,  nerve, 
cartilage,  fat,  gland,  membrane,  and  marrow 
are  not  blood,  though  they  arise  from  it." 

These  passages  are  from  the  opening  chap- 
ters of  the  second  book.  The  last  part  of  the 
first  book   and   the   remainder  of   book   two 

[ii8] 


I 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

present  the  working  of  the  innate  attractive 
and  alterative  powers  of  the  organs,  whereby 
they  take  and  transform  whatever  nutriment  is 
needed  for  their  functions.  Galen  writes  as 
a  physiologist  or  biologist,  though  he  has  in 
mind  the  medical  usefulness  of  his  matter. 
The  opening  paragraph  of  the  third  book  gives 
his  final  summary  of  this  subject: 

"  It  has  been  made  clear  in  the  preceding 
discussion  that  nutrition  occurs  by  an  altera- 
tion or  assimilation  of  that  which  nourishes  to 
that  which  receives  nourishment,  and  that 
there  exists  in  every  part  of  the  animal  a 
faculty  which  in  view  of  its  activity  we  call,  in 
general  terms,  alterative,  or,  more  specifically, 
assimilative  and  nutritive.  It  was  also  shown 
that  a  sufficient  supply  of  the  matter  which  the 
part  being  nourished  makes  into  nutriment 
for  itself,  is  ensured  by  virtue  of  another 
faculty  which  naturally  attracts  its  proper 
juice  [humour] ;  that  that  juice  is  proper  to 
each  part  which  is  adapted  for  assimilation,  and 
that  the  faculty  which  attracts  the  juice  is 
called,  by  reason  of  its  activity,  attractive  or 
epispastic.  It  has  also  been  shown  that  assimi- 
lation is  preceded  by  adhesion,  and  this,  again, 
by  presentation,  the  latter  stage  being,  as  one 

[119] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

might  say,  the  end  or  goal  of  the  activity  cor- 
responding to  the  attractive  faculty.  For  the 
actual  bringing  up  of  nutriment  from  the  veins 
into  each  of  the  parts  takes  place  through  the 
activation  of  the  attractive  faculty,  whilst  to 
have  been  finally  brought  up  and  presented  to 
the  part  is  the  actual  end  for  which  we  desired 
such  an  activity;  it  is  attracted  in  order  that 
it  may  be  presented.  After  this,  considerable 
time  is  needed  for  the  nutrition  of  the  animal. 
Whilst  a  thing  may  be  even  rapidly  attracted, 
on  the  other  hand  to  become  adherent,  altered, 
and  entirely  assimilated  to  the  part  which  is 
being  nourished  and  to  become  a  part  of  it, 
cannot  take  place  suddenly,  but  requires  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  time.  But  if  the  nutritive 
juice,  so  presented,  does  not  remain  in  the  part, 
but  withdraws  to  another  one,  and  keeps  flow- 
ing away,  and  constantly  changing  and  shift- 
ing its  position,  neither  adhesion  nor  comolete 
assimilation  will  take  place  in  any  of  them. 
Here  too,  then,  the  [animal's]  nature  has  need 
of  some  other  faculty  for  ensuring  a  prolonged 
stay  of  the  presented  juice  at  the  part,  and  this 
not  a  faculty  which  comes  in  from  somewhere 
outside  but  one  which  is  resident  in  the  part 
which  is  to  be  nourished.    This  faculty,  again, 

[  120] 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

in  view  of  its  activity  our  predecessors  were 
obliged  to  call  retentive."  "^ 

The  latter  part  of  the  third  book  is  largely 
devoted  to  an  exposition  of  the  genesis  and 
action  of  the  four  humors,  which  (Galen  main- 
tains) Hippocrates,  Aristotle  and  others  of  the 
ancients,  correctly  and  sufficiently  set  forth. 
He  professes  no  one  could  "  offer  anything 
wiser  than  what  has  been  said  "  by  them.  Yet 
even  here,  and  still  more  palpably  through 
other  portions  of  this  work,  and  indeed  through- 
out all  his  writings,  he  does  not  follow  Hippo- 
crates and  Aristotle  as  implicitly  as  he  pro- 
fesses. He  had  learned  more  than  either  of 
them  knew  of  the  conduct  of  the  body  in  health 
and  disease.  Yet,  had  he  kept  closer  to  the 
principles  of  sage  Hippocrates,  his  writings 
would  have  shown  a  wiser  reticence,  and  more 
respect  for  the  actual  boundaries  of  the  writer's 
knowledge. 

But  Galen  built  his  system  out  of  his  in- 
tellectual inheritance.  His  treatment  of  the 
old  materials  was  affected  by  the  mentality  of 
the  second  century,  in  which  he  shared.  He 
contributed  personally  the  fruits  of  his  own 
acute  observation  and  experiment,  and  brought 
to    bear    upon    the  whole    his    extraordinary 

[121] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

power  of  coordinating  disparate  elements  into 
a  system. 

Galen  represents  the  closing  development 
of  Greek  biology  and  medicine.  The  Galenic 
system  was  a  preservative  amalgamation  of 
Aristotle  and  the  Hippocratic  tradition  with 
whatever  was  added  by  Galen  himself.  No 
need  to  enlarge  or  change  it,  since  the  in- 
capacity of  the  following  time  for  scientific 
investigation  and  even  for  fruitful  clinical  ob- 
servation prevented  the  further  growth  of 
biological  or  medical  knowledge.  Dissection 
and  vivisection  halted;  clinical  observation  be- 
came dulled.  Galen  marks  the  end  of  progress 
in  biology  and  medicine  as  his  contemporary, 
Ptolemy,  marks  the  end  of  progress  in  as- 
tronomy. 

Galen's  immense  influence  did  not  commence 
in  his  lifetime,  nor  arise  at  once  upon  his 
death.  Time  had  to  elapse  before  the  sterile 
centuries  felt  the  need  of  some  unquestionable 
and  encyclopaedic  authority  on  which  to  base 
their  medicine.  As  for  biology  as  an  investi- 
gating science,  that  had  ceased  to  exist. 
Among  the  ancient  luminaries  in  medicine, 
Galen  was  nearest  to  the  coming  Byzantine  and 
Medieval  period  not  merely  in  time  but  in 

[  122  ] 


I 


THE     FINAL     SYSTEM:     GALEN 

spirit.  His  systematic  treatment  of  all  matters 
that  men  need  know,  his  authoritative  self- 
assurance,  and  above  all,  perhaps,  his  com- 
pleted teleology,  or  convincing  declaration  of 
the  purpose  of  every  part  and  organ  of  the 
body,  contributed  to  make  of  him  the  source  or 
canon  par  excellence  of  Arabian  and  western 
medieval  medicine.  In  many  garbs  and  forms 
he  reigned  for  centuries. 


[123] 


VI.    THE  LINKAGE  WITH  THE 
MODERN    TIME 

IN  WAYS  inscrutable  as  well  as  in  trace- 
able currents,  Greek  biology  and  medicine 
have  entered  into  their  greater  modern 
congeners.  There  is  no  unbroken  and  con- 
tinuous record.  Modern  biology  starts  afresh 
from  observation  and  experiment,  and  advances 
through  constantly  spreading  avenues  of 
scientific  research.  Medicine  and  anatomy 
gather  impulse  from  rebellions  against  the 
ancient  authorities  and  rejections  of  their 
statements;  Paracelsus  (1493-1541),  but  re- 
cently recognized  as  a  great  and  original  physi- 
cian, declares  against  the  four  humors  of  the 
old  pathology,  asserts  that  they  do  not  exist, 
and  publicly  burns  the  works  of  Galen. 
Vesalius,  "  founder  of  modern  anatomy," 
proves  that  Galen's  anatomical  descriptions 
are  wrong  because  based  on  the  dissection  of 
apes  and  pigs  instead  of  men  and  women. 

Yet  even  when  men  think  to  disavow  and 
reject,  they  are  affected  by  what  has  made  part 

[  124] 


LINKAGE     WITH     THE     MODERN     TIME 

of  their  education.  For  example,  after  long 
and  baffling  vivisections,  Harvey  demonstrates 
the  systemic  circulation  of  the  blood.  His  dis- 
covery has  come  through  years  of  anxious  ob- 
servation, and  not  from  what  he  has  read  (to 
the  contrary!)  in  books.  Yet  his  reasonings, 
if  not  his  observations,  never  free  themselves 
from  the  influence  of  Aristotle;  and  his  great 
discovery  sorely  perplexes  him,  since  he  cannot 
understand  the  final  cause,  that  is  to  say,  the 
purpose,  of  the  blood's  rapid  round  throughout 
the  body:  not  for  generations  was  this  to  be 
cleared  up  through  the  discovery  of  oxygen 
and  the  gradual  elucidation  of  the  combustion 
involved  in  the  renewal  and  cleansing  of  the 
system  by  the  blood. 

The  cessation  of  growth  brings  decay  to 
any  branch  of  knowledge.  Only  further 
accomplishment  can  fully  utilize  and  carry  on 
the  achievements  of  the  past.  Progress  alone 
conserves,  coming  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill. 

Biology  was  not  prosecuted  after  Galen's 
time,  and  the  healing  arts  of  medicine  and 
surgery  gained  Kttle  that  was  new  from  clinical 
experience.  Vainly  they  sought  to  conserve 
themselves  through  an  eclecticism  which  tended 
to  become  partial  and  then  scholastic.    As  the 

[  125] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY    AND    MEDICINE 

faculty  of  investigation  failed,  the  greater 
ancient  sources  were  no  longer  used  in  the 
fullness  of  their  contents  and  living  spirit. 

In  the  East,  the  energies  aroused  by  Islam 
stemmed  the  decline  of  medicine.  Among  the 
early  "  Arabian  "  physicians  (the  best  of  them 
were  Persians)  were  good  practitioners  and 
clinical  observers.  There  was  enough  active 
intelligence  to  demand  and  support  the  use  of 
the  best  sources  of  medical  science,  which 
were  of  course  the  Greek.  One  of  these  good 
physicians,  the  princely  Persian,  Avicenna 
(980-1037),  was  an  acquisitive  and  systema- 
tizing genius  of  the  first  order.  His  great 
"Canon  of  the  healing  art,"  drawn  chiefly 
from  Galen  and  Aristotle,  presents  the  contents 
of  Greek  medicine  as  a  closed  and  serried 
system.  This  book  was  of  enormous  influence 
upon  medieval  Europe,  and  is  said  still  to  rule 
in  the  Moslem  world. 

Nevertheless  in  Avicenna's  "  Canon  "  and  in 
the  treatises  current  in  medieval  Europe,  Greek 
medicine  was  embalmed,  rather  than  alive  and 
quick  in  its  creative  spirit  of  investigation. 
Moreover,  medieval  physicians  and  compilers 
tended  to  select  and  use  what  was  on  the  level 
of  their  own  appreciation  or  understanding.    So 

[126] 


LINKAGE     WITH     THE     MODERN     TIME 

they  left  untouched  much  that  was  best  in  the 
Greek  medical  legacy. 

At  a  later  time,  say  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  spirit  of  scientific  observation  was  stirring 
more  actively,  and  the  epoch-making  people 
of  the  age  worked  somewhat  in  the  old  Greek 
way,  making  ready  a  period  of  palpable  scien- 
tific progress.  Such  men  were  fitted  to  receive 
the  best  that  the  great  and  ancient  past  con- 
tained, which  it  now  seemed  to  offer  these 
brighter  minds  as  with  a  new  disclosure. 

But  in  respect  to  medicine  and  anatomy 
there  were  obstacles  to  any  such  acceptance. 
The  men  given  to  actual  observation  were  im- 
patient of  the  past's  authority;  they  chose  to 
see  for  themselves.  Vesalius  was  not  like  those 
who  in  his  own  and  prior  generations  could 
see  in  the  actual  human  body  what  Mundinus 
or  Galen  said  was  there.  He  was  looking  for 
himself,  and  was  vehemently  moved  at  the  dis- 
crepancy between  Galen  and  the  human  fact. 
For  him,  Galen  had  ceased  to  reign. 

Thus  from  the  times  of  Paracelsus,  VesaKus 
?nd  Pa^e,  and  then  of  Harvey,  two  general 
factors  tended  to  end  the  reign  of  the  once 
dominant  Galen.  The  one  was  the  active 
scientific  spirit  —  quite  like  the  Greek  —  im- 

[  127] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

pelling  these  men  and  their  successors  to  go  to 
nature  for  their  facts,  and  not  accept  them 
from  authority;  and  the  other  was  the  con- 
comitant or  resulting  increase  of  knowledge 
of  the  human  body  in  health  and  disease,  and 
of  other  living  organisms,  as  well  as  of  the 
action  of  natural  agencies  affecting  them. 

Some  of  these  men  were  even  tempted  to 
depreciate  the  ancients,  drawing  a  breath  of 
relief  after  the  long  incumbency,  the  dead 
weight,  of  their  authority.  Yet  as  medicine 
through  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, and  to  our  own  day,  continued  on  its 
chequered  and  romantic  career,  ever  and  anon 
there  came  to  it  the  impulse  to  take  refuge  in 
the  old  Hippocratic  wisdom. 

The  struggle,  nay,  the  romance  of  medicine, 
springs  from  the  desire  of  the  intellectual 
creature  to  find  a  reason,  an  underlying  ex- 
planation, to  "  save  "  and  account  for  observed 
phenomena.  The  thoughtful  doctor  seeks  to 
account  for  the  action  of  disease,  and  find  an 
accordant  theory,  as  well  as  means  of  cure. 
His  desire  to  understand  disease  keeps 
him  from  being  satisfied  with  such  remedies  as 
mere  experience  has  shown  to  be  followed  with 
good  results. 

[128] 


LINKAGE     WITH     THE     MODERN     TIME 

What  man  who  desires  to  account  for  things 
as  obscure  as  disease,  or  to  accomplish  so  diffi- 
cult a  task  as  its  cure,  can  avoid  framing  a 
working  hypothesis  in  his  mind?  He  may  come 
to  admire  and  rely  on  his  hypothesis  till  it 
grows  into  a  comprehensive  explanation,  a 
compelling  theory,  of  life  and  disease.  Any 
rational  means  of  cure,  transcending  the 
groping  of  haphazard  empiricism,  must  conform 
to  this  theory.  His  working  hypothesis  was, 
to  be  sure,  suggested  by  some  facts  of  obser- 
vation. But  from  their  child  it  may  become 
their  master.  In  that  case  it  will  be  apt  to 
deflect  observation,  and  may  cause  the  ob- 
server to  see  only  facts  that  accord  with  it. 

In  pure  or  abstract  science  a  good  hypothesis 
or  theory  should  account  for  the  facts  ob- 
served ;  and  new  facts  may  undo  it.  Till  those 
new  facts  appear,  there  may  be  no  call  to  re- 
consider the  theory,  or  use  it  practically. 
But  medicine,  on  the  other  hand,  is  essentially 
a  practice,  a  healing  art.  Its  function  is  to 
cure  the  sick. 

The  general  appearance  and  conduct  of 
living  beings  suggests  some  conception  of  life 
and  some  idea  of  the  disturbance  called  dis- 
ease.    This  idea  may  carry  a  notion  of  the 

[129] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY    AND     MEDICINE 

means  of  cure,  adjusted  to  the  symptoms. 
The  test  of  validity  comes  when  doctors  apply 
their  theories  to  their  patients.  If  the  doctors 
be  intelligent  and  rationally  observant,  like  the 
Greeks,  clinical,  and  perhaps  too  frequently 
death-bed  experience  may  lead  them  in  time 
to  reject  some  particular  theory  of  disease  and 
cure.  But  experience,  having  overthrown  one 
theory,  is  likely  to  lead  the  doctors  to  shape 
another.  Thus  goes  on  the  alternate  conflict 
and  alliance  between  theory  and  practice, 
which  makes  the  intellectual  romance  of  medi- 
cine. The  character  and  vicissitudes  of  this 
romance  are  affected  from  century  to  century, 
by  the  intellectual  temper  of  the  time,  con- 
structive, for  example,  or  sceptical  or  eclectic. 
This  conflict  is  set  forth  in  that  inaugural 
Hippocratic  writing  entitled.  The  Ancient 
Medicine,  which  argues  that  the  practitioner 
should  have  nothing  to  do  with  philosophers' 
theories  regarding  the  universe  of  things  and 
the  nature  of  man.  These  theories  incidentally 
find  the  causes  of  disease  in  excessive  heat  or 
cold,  moisture  or  dryness.  The  practice  of 
medicine  needs  no  such  vain  and  superfluous 
hypotheses.  It  is  a  healing  art  learned  through 
the  rational  teaching  of  cumulative  observa- 

[130] 


I 


LINKAGE     WITH     THE     MODERN     TIME 

tion.  This  ordered  store  of  clinical  experience 
will  tell  the  practitioner  when  no  application 
of  the  "  hot  or  cold  "  theory,  but  a  regulated 
diet,  will  benefit  the  patient. 

Yet  the  Hippocratics  used  working  hypo- 
theses of  general  application.  They  conceived 
them  as  the  fruits  of  medical  experience.  The 
two  most  famous  were  the  hypothesis  of  the 
four  humors  and  that  of  the  vis  medicatrix 
naturae,  the  healing  energy  of  nature  herself. 
The  first  has  been  discarded;  but  the  second 
is  in  some  form  and  manner  still  accepted 
universally  in  medicine  and  surgery. 

Another  fundamental  Hippocratic  convic- 
tion or  hypothesis  was  that  diseases  came 
from  natural,  not  demonic,  causes,  and  should 
be  treated  by  natural  remedies  rather  than 
by  magic.  It  was  this  conviction  that  enabled 
Greek  medicine  to  become  a  rational  art  and 
possible  science.  One  sees  at  once  its  broad 
affiliation.  The  assumption  of  the  constant 
action  of  natural  causes  underlies  every  me- 
chanical art  and  all  physical  science.  In 
medicine,  the  hypothesis  that  disease  is  due  to 
natural  causes,  and  should  be  treated  by  cor- 
responding remedies,  has  had  a  chequered 
career!    Yet  one  will  scarcely  beg  the  question 

[131] 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

in  saying  that  it  has  been  accepted  by  the  best 
medical  practice  from  the  time  of  Hippocrates 
to  our  own  day! 

One  might  write  an  interesting  history  of 
medicine,  as  the  story  of  the  conflicts  and 
alliances  between  theory  and  practice.  One 
should,  however,  bear  in  mind  that  the  differ- 
ences among  the  doctors  of  any  period  in  the 
actual  treatment  of  disease  have  been  less 
marked  than  their  controversies  might  seem  to 
indicate. 

Celsus  told  us  of  the  Empirics  who  pro- 
tested that  they  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
remote  and  hidden  causes;  of  the  Methodists 
who  were  partial  to  generalizations.  More 
interesting  were  the  Pneumatics,  with  their 
vital  principle  of  the  Pneuma,  an  idea  almost 
as  old  as  man.  Yet  these  ancient  schools  were 
not  so  very  wide  apart  in  practice. 

A  century  later,  Galen,  sagaciously  survey- 
ing the  medicine  of  his  own  time  and  the  older 
teachings,  strove  to  make  a  system  from  his 
conceptions  of  the  medical  wisdom  of  Hippo- 
crates and  the  biology  of  Aristotle.  Although 
a  great  observer,  he  was  in  love  with  logical 
a  priori  construction:  with  him,  intelligent 
people  were  "  those  who  understand  the  conse- 
quences of  their  hypotheses." 

[132] 


LINKAGE     WITH     THE     MODERN     TIME 

From  Galen  we  leap  forward  to  his  would- 
be  overthrower,  Paracelsus,  who  cast  off  the 
old  theories,  yet  reached  back  his  hand  to 
Hippocrates  as  a  wise  practitioner  and  pro- 
found observer  of  the  courses  of  disease,  like 
Paracelsus  himself!  His  younger  contempo- 
rary, Vesalius,  investigating  with  his  own  hands 
and  eyes,  rejected  much  of  the  old  anatomy, 
and  apparently  troubled  himself  little  with 
medical  theory.  But  Harvey  —  to  mention 
only  one  feature  of  the  working  of  this  great 
intelligence  —  was  harassed  by  the  craving  to 
reconcile  the  circulation  of  the  blood  with  the 
Aristotelian  physiology  or  teleology  of  the  nat- 
ural parts  of  man.  And  if  Harvey's  dis- 
covery of  the  systemic  circulation  appears  as 
the  fruit  of  investigation  and  experiment,  his 
pregnant  contribution  to  the  theory,  or  knowl- 
edge, of  generation  was  in  itself  an  hypothesis 
(acceptable  no  longer!),  to  wit:  omne  vivum 
ex  ovo. 

Practice  and  theory!  medicine  must  have 
both;  and  when  clinical  experience  has  taught 
its  lessons,  the  microscope  and  laboratory  be- 
come the  chief  means  of  medical  advance.  The 
wise  practitioner,  though  he  turn  his  mind  from 
theorizing,  will  still  be  he  who  proceeds  upon 
some  sane  working  hypothesis. 

[  133  ] 


GREEK    BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

Belonging  to  Harvey's  own  generation  the 
extraordinary  Fleming,  van  Helmont,  forms  a 
link  between  Paracelsus  and  the  theorizing 
systems  of  the  medico-chemical  and  medico- 
physical  schools  of  the  early  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  chemical  school  (Sylvius  of  Leyden 
may  be  called  the  founder)  starts  from  the  con- 
ception of  fermentation  through  the  action,  for 
example,  of  the  saliva  and  gastric  juices  upon 
foods.  Health  consisted  in  the  proper  balance 
of  acids  and  alkalies,  and  sickness  in  the  excess 
of  one  or  the  other.  The  cure  lay  in  the  re- 
duction of  the  excessive  element.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  physicists,  starting  from  the 
admitted  circulation  of  the  blood,  sought  a 
physical  or  mechanical  interpretation  of  all 
bodily  processes.  Health  lay  in  their  unim- 
peded action. 

Since  the  physical  as  well  as  chemical  knowl- 
edge of  that  time  was  utterly  inadequate  for 
the  basis  of  sound  medical  practice,  a  reaction 
was  to  be  expected.  The  advocates  of  these 
theories  had  drawn  more  than  one  conception 
from  Greek  medicine,  to  weave  into  their 
systems.  Now  the  reaction  inaugurated  by 
the  Englishman,  Thomas  Sydenham  (1624- 
1689),  directed   itself   toward   the   conscious 

[134] 


LINKAGE     Vl^ITH     THE     MODERN     TIME 

acceptance  of  the  principles  of  Hippocratic 
practice.  Not  improperly  was  Sydenham 
called  "  the  English  Hippocrates."  Although 
conversant  with  the  natural  sciences  of  his 
time,  he  refused  to  base  the  practice  of  medi- 
cine upon  any  theory  drawn  from  them,  even 
as  Hippocrates  and  his  school  had  refused  to 
base  their  medicine  upon  the  theories  of  the 
Greek  physical  philosophers. 

Like  Hippocrates,  Sydenham  set  himself  in 
every  case  to  study  the  whole  course  of  the 
patient's  disease,  observing  the  succession  of 
symptoms,  and  the  response  of  the  patient  to 
the  treatment  employed.  Like  Hippocrates, 
he  conceived  a  disease  as  the  struggle  of  the 
body's  healing  energy  —  the  vis  medicatrix 
naturae  —  with  the  noxious  agent.  He  divided 
the  symptoms  into:  (i)  those  essentially  per- 
taining to  the  action  of  the  noxious  cause;  (2) 
those  arising  from  the  reaction  of  the  patient's 
system;  and  (3)  those  induced  by  the  treat- 
ment. He  developed  the  conception  of  succes- 
sive phases  of  disease,  and  of  the  pernicious 
or  benignant  symptoms  pertaining  to  them. 

Sydenham,  again  like  Hippocrates,  con- 
cerned himself  chiefly  with  acute  disease.  A 
malady  became  chronic  through  the  slowness 

[135] 


II 


c 


GREEK     BIOLOGY     AND     MEDICINE 

of  the  patient's  reaction  or  the  persistence  of 
the  noxious  agent.  And,  finally,  he  showed 
himself  true  to  the  Hippocratic  spirit  in  refus- 
ing blind  obedience  to  any  authority  (even 
that  of  Hippocrates  himself,  whose  reputed 
works  he  had  studied  diligently)  and  in  testing 
everything  by  observation.  His  spirit  is  re- 
flected in  a  passage  from  one  of  his  letters 
referring  to  his  own  medical  writings: 

"  I  have  been  very  careful  to  write  nothing 
but  what  was  the  product  of  faithful  observa- 
tion, and  neither  suffered  myself  to  be  deceived 
by  idle  speculations,  nor  have  deceived  others 
by  obtruding  anything  upon  them  but  down- 
right matter  of  fact."  '^ 

With  Sydenham  and  the  turn  toward  Hip- 
pocratic methods,  we  may  leave  this  romance 
of  the  conflict  and  alliance  between  medical 
theory,  or  medical  science,  and  medical  prac- 
tice. To  continue  it  exceeds  my  space  as  it 
does  my  powers.  We  have  the  word  of  the 
veteran  of  medical  science  and  medical  history 
that  Hippocrates  and  Sydenham  "did  useful 
work  for  mankind  in  the  twilight."  Sir  Clifford 
Allbutt  has  loved  them  well,  these  great  for- 
bears of  his,  kin  to  each  other  though  two 
thousand  years  apart.     But  now  Sir  Clifford, 

[136] 


LINKAGE     WITH     THE     MODERN     TIME 

speaking  in  191 9,  deems  that  a  new  birth  of 
medicine  is  taking  place:  "  What  is  then  the 
new  birth,  this  revolution  in  medicine?  It 
is  nothing  less  than  its  enlargement  from  an 
art  of  observation  and  empiricism  to  an  applied 
science  founded  upon  research;  from  a  craft  of 
tradition  and  sagacity  to  an  applied  science 
of  analysis  and  law;  from  a  descriptive  code  of 
surface  phenomena  to  the  discovery  of  deeper 
affinities;  from  a  set  of  rules  and  axioms  of 
quality  to  measurements  of  quantity."  Sursum 
corda!  —  Lift  up  your  hearts!  Before  us 
spreads  a  fair  prospect  of  the  reconcilement 
of  theory  and  practice,  in  a  final  system  of 
scientific  medicine! 

However  this  may  be,  we  have  recently  real- 
ized, as  never  before,  the  vast  range  and  com- 
plexity of  the  elements  entering  our  mental- 
ities; and  we  who  may  live  to  witness  the  new 
revolution,  should  also  be  ready  to  recognize 
the  indirect,  the  obscure  yet  basic,  influence  of 
Greek  medicine.  The  modern  medical  man  no 
longer  looks  to  Galen  or  Hippocrates  for 
specific  instruction;  but  he  well  may  make  his 
own  the  spirit  of  the  Hippocratic  writings  and 
the  wise  principles  of  Hippocratic  practice. 
He  may  still  take  to  himself  many  a  Hippo- 

[137] 


II 


GREEK     BIOLOGY    AND    MEDICINE 


cratic  precept;  and  well  for  him  and  all  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact  if  he  have  drawn 
into  his  nature,  and  reflect  in  his  professional 
conduct,  the  Hippocratic  ethics  of  the  heal- 
ing art. 

And  if  modern  medicine  and  biology  no 
longer  draw  directly  from  the  old  Greek  store, 
we  still  may  reflect  upon  the  antecedent  in- 
fluence by  which  we  profit.  The  guiding  knowl- 
edge, which  we  no  longer  need,  did  its  work 
in  our  immediate  or  mediate  predecessors,  and 
thus  led  on  to  us.  The  shoulders  that  we 
stand  on  are  the  taller  because  the  men  before 
us,  or  the  men  before  them,  stood  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  Greeks.  So  the  Greek  founda- 
tion stones  have  their  place  in  our  edifice  of 
knowledge.  And  still  at  the  summit  waves  the 
flag  of  nature,  —  the  old  Hippocratic  (t>v(ns  — 
as  the  healer  of  the  body's  ills:  vovao^v  (t)vaeLs 
irjTpol,  vis  medicatrix  naturae.  Today  more 
universally  than  ever,  if  not  more  profoundly, 
we  realize  that  the  power  of  an  organism  to 
heal  or  restore  itself  is  one  of  the  universal 
marks  dividing  all  living  organisms  —  plants, 
and  animalS;  and  man  —  from  the  inorganic 
world. 

[138] 


I 


BRIEF  OUTLINE    OF  INFLUENCE  OF 
GREEK  BIOLOGY  AND  MEDICINE 

Christian    Fathers,   including   St.   Augustine,    (3S4-43o)  — 

Teleological  view  of  the  human  body. 
Abstractions   from    Galen: 

Oribasius  (325-423) » 

Paulus   of   Aegina    (625-690), 

Alexander   of  Tralles   (525-605),  zealous   Galenists. 
Hippocrates     and     Galen,     in     Arabic     (almost     slavish 
devotion) : 

Rhazes,  (c.  8so-c.  923),  in  theory  a  Galenist,  in  prac- 
tice, Hippocratic; 

Avicenna    (980-1037);   the   "Canon,"  based   on   Galen; 

Avenzoar    (Hispano-Arabic,   c.    1072-1162),    disciple    of 
Galen ; 

Averroes      (1126-1198),     through      whom     Aristotelian 
science  became  known  in   Europe  during  the  Middle 
Ages;  shook  some  doctrines  of  Galen. 
Translations  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  from  Arabic  into 
Latin:    e.g. 

Constantine   (monk  at  Monte  Cassino)    tio87, 

Gerard  of  Cremona,  tii85, 

Mark  of  Toledo,  c.  1200. 
No  translation  of  Aristotle's  Historia  Animalium,  or  of 
the  De  Generatione  Animalium,  of  Hippocrates'  De 
Generatione,  or  of  Theophrastus'  De  Plantis  reached 
the  earlier  Middle  Age;  knowledge  of  these  works 
might  have  led  to  a  rediscovery  of  Nature,  centuries 
earlier,  and  would  have  altered  the  intellectual  history 
of  Europe. 
Learned  revival  of  13th  century:  translations,  from  the 
Arabic,  but  also  from  the  Greek,  of  texts  of  Hippo- 

[  139] 


BRIEF    OUTLINE 

crates  and   Galen  who  became  integral  parts  in  the 
medical  instruction  in  Universities  for  centuries; 

Michael    the    Scot     (1175 ?-i 234 ?) ;    two    versions    of 
Aristotle's  Historia  Animalium; 

Albertus  Magnus  (1206-80),  Commentary  on  Historia 
Animalium;  Albertus  began  first-hand  plant-study 
in  modern  times. 
14th  century:  Nicholas  of  Reggio  translated  the  treatise 
of  Galen  On  the  uses  of  the  (bodily)  parts,  from 
Greek  into  Latin;  the  best  account  of  the  human 
body  then  available  and  the  starting  point  of  modern 
scientific  medicine; 

Conrad  von  Megenberg  (1309-1398) ;  Book  of  Nature, 
founded  on  Latin  versions  of  Aristotle  and  Galen. 
iSth  century:  Recovery  of  more  Hippocratic  and  Galenic 
texts,  which  were  turned  into  Latin;  e.g.,  Thomas 
Linacre  (c.  1460-1524)  ;  *'  De  Naturalibus  Faculta- 
tibus",  1523; 

Isolated  Edition  of  Galen,  1490,  but  Hippocratic  works 
first  printed  in  1525. 
i6th  century:  A  new  biological  science,  largely  due  to 
Aristotle  and  Galen,  although  Paracelsus  (1493-1541) 
destroyed  the  '  humoral  pathology ',  and  pubUcly 
burned  the  works  of  Galen; 

First  Greek  text  of  the  Aphorisms  of  Hippocrates,  1532, 
edited  by  Rabelais; 

Vesalius  (1514-1564)  the  modem  "  Father  of  Anatomy  "; 
though  he  based  his  work  on  Galen,  yet  he  shook 
the  authority  of  Galen,  by  proving  errors  of  Galen; 

Antonio  Benivieni  (tiS02)  revived  Hippocratic  tradi- 
tion by  publishing  notes  of  cases,  with  records  of 
deaths  and  post-mortem  examinations,  —  as  did 
Amatus  Lusitanus  (1511-c.  1562),  of  Portugal; 

Ambroise  Pare  (1517-1590),  "Father  of  Modem 
Surgery";  though  no  classical  scholar,  profoundly 
influenced  by  classical  traditions; 

Fabridus  ab  Acquapendente  (i  537-1619),  founder  of 
modern  embryology  and  an  Aristotelian; 

William  Harvey  (1578-1657),  founder  of  modem  experi- 

[140] 


I 


BRIEF    OUTLINE 

mental  physiology,  the  greatest  biologist  since  Aris- 
totle, whose   work  On   Generation  is  a  commentary 
on   Aristotle   in   the  Aristotelian   spirit   of   return   to 
nature. 
17th  century:  Great  revival  of  Hippocratic  tradition: 

Thomas  Sydenham  (1624-1689)  "The  English  Hippo- 
crates ", 

Herman  Boerhaave   (i 668-1 738). 
1 8th    century:    Partial    eclipse    of    the    ancients,    through 
scientists'  absorption  in  direct  investigation  of  Nature; 
cf.,  e.g., 

C.  Linnaeus  (i 707-1 778), 

Georges  Cuvier   (i 769-1832). 
Rediscovery  of  the  significance  of  Hippocrates  and  of  the 
Aristotelian    biology,  —  a    modern    achievement: 

R.  T.  H.  Laennec  (i 781-1826),  inventor  of  stetho- 
scope; valuable  hints  derived  from  Hippocratic 
writings; 

Francis  Adams  (i 796-1861);  praise  of  Hippocratic 
surgical  treatises; 

Johannes  Miiller  (1801-1858), 

George  H.  Lewes  (181 7-1878), 

William  Ogle  (1827-1912); 
all  derived  direct  inspiration  from  Aristotle's  biological 
works,  in  spite  of  independent  research  work. 


li 


I 


[141] 


NOTES  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


NOTES  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


1.  Cf.  John  Bumet,  Early  Greek  Philosophy,  London, 
1920,  2  p.  70. 

2.  "  From  quotations  I  had  seen  I  had  a  high  notion 
of  Aristotle's  merits,  but  I  had  not  the  most  remote  notion 
what  a  wonderful  man  he  was.  Linnaeus  and  Cuvier  have 
been  my  two  gods,  though  in  very  different  ways,  but  they 
were  mere  schoolboys  to  old  Aristotle,"  in  Letter  of  Darwin 
to  Ogle,  1882,  cited  by  Arthur  Piatt,  in  the  preface  to  his 
translation  of  the  De  Gen.  Animalium;  also  by  Charles 
Singer,  "Biology,"  p.  200,  in  R.  W.  Livingstone's  The 
Legacy  of  Greece,  Oxford,  192 1. 

3.  W.  A.  Heidel,  "  Uepl  ^vaeoss,  a  study  of  the  con- 
ception of  Nature  among  the  Pre-Socratics,"  in  Proceedings 
of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  XLV.  105 

(1910)- 

4.  W.  A.  Heidel,  o.c,  p.   106.    Professor  Heidel  has 

rendered  service  to  scholarship  in  bringing  forward  the 
interpretative  value  of  the  Hippocratic  writings.  In  saying 
"  Hippocrates,"  Professor  Heidel  is  not  intending  to  decide 
the  specific  authorship  of  the  tracts  drawn  upon. 

5.  I  refer  to  the  Uepi  Aiatrrts,  On  Diet,  and  the 
Uepl  ToPTjs,  On  Generation.  A  sketch  of  their  contents 
is  given  by  Charles  Singer,  in  Livingstone's  The  Legacy 
of  Greece,  Oxford,  192 1,  pp.  168  ff. 

6.  The  great  edition  is  that  of  Littr6  in  ten  volumes, 
with  almost  too  ample  introductions,  and  containing  the 
Greek  text  printed  opposite  the  French  translation,  fimile 
Littr6,  Oeuvres  Completes  d'Hippocrate,  Paris,  1839-53. 
While  Littr6  was  bringing  out  his  volumes,  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  good  English  translation,  with 
judicious  introduction  and  notes,  was  made  of  The  Genuine 
Works    of    Hippocrates,    by    Francis    Adams,    under    the 

[145] 


NOTES    AND    BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Auspices  of  the  Sydenham  Society,  London,  1849,  and  New 
York,  1886.  These  writings  vary  in  wisdom  and  knowledge, 
and  not  all  of  them  seem  to  emanate  from  the  same  school. 
Hippocrates  was  of  an  Asclepiad  family,  and  bom  on  the 
island  of  Cos,  where  a  temple  school  of  medicine  already 
flourished.  He  is  the  supreme  representative  of  the  Coan 
school.  The  doctrines  of  the  rival  school  of  Cnidus  were 
disapproved  by  him,  yet  will  be  found  to  have  crept  into 
some  of  the  writings  included  in  the  Hippocratic  Corpus. 
The  Cnidian  school  was  a  little  earher  than  the  Coan, 
and  admirable  in  its  practice.  Unfortunately  for  us,  and 
for  its  own  repute,  the  Cnidian  writings  are  lost.  Plato's 
irony  has  ruined  the  Sophists,  and  the  slurs  of  the  Church 
Fathers  on  such  of  their  opponents  as  the  Gnostics  can- 
not be  repelled  by  men  whom  time  has  rendered  voiceless. 
We  wish  that  the  Cnidians  also  could  speak  for  themselves. 

7.  The  short  piece  llepl  Tex*^  — Concerning  [the]  Art 
[of  healing],  in  the  sixth  volume  of  Littre's  edition,  argues 
that  there  is  a  real  medicine  or  healing  art,  which,  for 
example  (§  11),  enables  the  physician  to  infer  from  other 
symptoms  what  is  not  visible  to  the  eye  in  internal  disease. 

8.  Heidel's  translation,  o.c. 

9.  The  writer  of  the  tract  has  not  in  mind  those 
working  hypotheses  or  pre-suppositions,  which  every  man 
of  science  uses  in  systematic  observation  and  experiment; 
he  is  thinking  of  the  hypotheses  which  would  ascribe  all 
disease  to  an  excess  of  warmth  or  cold,  dryness  or  moisture ; 
for  this  does  not  tally  with  common  experience. 

10.  Water,  unmixed  with  wine,  was  not  highly  thought 
of  in  ancient  Greece. 

11.  On  Ancient  Medicine,  §  13,  Adams'  translation,  o.c, 
slightly  modified. 

12.  Heidel's  translation,  o.c.  (a  very  little  changed). 

13.  Adams'  Translation,  o.c. 

14.  The  attention  of  Hippocrates  and  his  school  was 
fastened  upon  acute  diseases;  chronic  affections  were  re- 
garded as  a  result  of  them. 

15.  Adams'   Translation,  o.c. 

16.  Says   Charles   Singer,   after   citing   some   of   these 

[146] 


i 


\ 


NOTES    AND    BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Aphorisms:  "  No  less  remarkable  is  the  following  saying: 
'  In  jaundice  it  is  a  grave  matter  if  the  liver  becomes  in- 
durated.' Jaundice  is  a  common  and  comparatively  trivial 
symptom  following  or  accompanying  a  large  variety  of 
diseases.  In  and  by  itself  it  is  of  little  importance  and 
almost  always  disappears  spontaneously.  There  is  a  small 
group  of  pathological  conditions,  however,  in  which  this  is 
not  the  case.  The  commonest  and  most  important  of  these 
are  the  fatal  affections  of  cirrhosis  and  cancer  of  the  liver, 
in  which  that  organ  may  be  felt  to  be  enlarged  and  hard- 
ened. If  therefore  the  liver  can  be  so  felt  in  a  case  of 
jaundice,  it  is,  as  the  Aphorism  says,  of  gravest  import,"  in 
The  Legacy  of  Greece,  o.c,  p.  232. 

17.  Largely  Adams'  Translation,  o.c 

18.  Adams'  Translation,  o.c. 

19.  A  common  Hippocratic  operation  was  opening  the 
patient's  chest  to  relieve  the  accumulation  of  pus  in  cases 
of  empyema,  following  pneumonia.  Cf.  Charles  Singer,  in 
The  Legacy  of  Greece,  o.c,  p.  228. 

One  may  note  that  the  names  of  these  two  diseases  and, 
for  that  matter,  a  considerable  part  of  medical  nomen- 
clature are  from  Hippocrates. 

20.  In  The  Legacy  of  Greece,  o.c,  p.  236. 

21.  This  is  apparent  when  he  is  seeking  to  orient  him- 
self in  his  subject,  as  in  the  opening  chapters  of  the  De 
Partibus  Animalium. 

22.  Assuredly  Leonardo,  if  ever  mortal  man,  is  entitled 
to  be  called  a  universal  genius;  and  his  dissections  of 
human  bodies  and  animals  were  joined  in  his  mind  with 
mathematics  and  mechanics,  though  not  with  philosophy. 
But  unhappily  Leonardo's  marvellous  anatomical  drawings 
remained  unknown  and  exerted  no  influence  upon  other 
investigators,  so  far  as  may  be  ascertained.  See  H.  Hop- 
stock,  "  Leonardo  as  Anatomist,"  in  Charles  Singer's 
Studies  in  the  History  and  Method  of  Science,  Oxford, 
1921 ;  II.  151-191. 

23.  D'Arcy  Wentworth  Thompson,  Historia  Animalium, 
English  Translation,  Oxford,  1910;  William  Ogle,  De 
Partibus   Animalium,   English   Translation,   Oxford,    1911; 

[147] 


NOTES    AND    BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Arthur  Piatt,  De  Generaiione  Animalium,  English  Transla- 
tion, Oxford,  1910. 

24.  Sir  Arthur  Hort,  Theophrastus*  Enquiry  Into 
Plants,  with  an  English  Translation,  in  The  Loeb  Classical 
Library.     2  vols.     New  York,  191 6. 

25.  Aristotle  refers  to  the  vivisection  of  a  chameleon 

in  Hist.  An.,  II.  11.  (S03  b.) 

26.  See  Charles  Singer,  "  Greek  Biology  and  its  Relation 
to  the  Rise  of  Modern  Biology,"  in  Singer's  Studies  in  the 
History  and  Method  of  Science,  Oxford,  1921;  II.  i-ioo. 

27.  It  is  more  elaborately  discussed  in  De  Partibus  Ani- 
malium, II.  I  ff.  (646  a.) 

28.  De  Gen.  An.,  II.  i.  (73^  b.) 

29.  De  Partibus  Animalium,  I.  S-  (645  a.) ;  says  Henri 
Poincar6:  "We  seek  reality,  but  what  is  reaUty?  The 
physiologists  tell  us  that  organisms  are  formed  of  cells; 
the  chemists  add  that  cells  themselves  are  formed  of  atoms. 
Does  this  mean  that  these  atoms  or  these  cells  constitute 
reality,  or  rather  the  sole  reality?  The  way  in  which 
these  cells  are  arranged,  and  from  which  results  the  unity 
of  the  individual,  is  not  it  also  a  reality  much  more  in- 
teresting than  that  of  the  isolated  elements  .  .  .  ?  "  Again: 
"...  it  is  m  the  relations  alone  that  objectivity  must  be 
sought;  it  would  be  vain  to  seek  it  in  beings  considered 
as  isolated  from  one  another."  Foundations  of  Science, 
(I9i3),p.  217  and  p.  350. 

30.  De  Partibus  Animalium,  I.  i.  (641  b.) 

31.  Hist  An.,  VIII.  I.  (588  b.-s89  a.) 

32.  Uepl  ^iaios  raiSlovy  On  the  Nature  of  the  Embryo, 
§  29,  dted  by  Singer,  o.c. 

33.  Hist.  An.,  VI.  3.   (S61  a.) 

34.  D'Arcy  W.  Thompson,  On  Aristotle  as  a  Biologist, 
(Herbert  Spencer  Lecture,  I9i3)>  Oxford,  1913.  Cf.  also,  in 
greater  detail,  Charles  Singer,  in  his  "  Greek  Biology,"  etc., 
o.c,  pp.  29  ff.,  which  contains  other  examples  of  Aristotle's 
penetrating  observation  aided  by  dissection. 

35.  Cf.  William  Ogle,  De  Partibus  Animalium,  English 
Translation,  Oxford,  19";  Int.,  p.  27. 

36.  Charles  Singer,  "  Greek  Biology,"  etc.,  o.c,  pp.  19,  20. 

[148] 


NOTES     AND     BIBLIOGRAPHY 


37.  A  like  need  impelled  Immanuel  Kant  to  conceive  a 
metaphysical  scheme,  suited  to  his  apprehension  of  the 
natural  universe. 

38.  De  Gen.  An.,  I.  i.  (715  a.) 

39.  This  passage  unconsciously  suggests  that  possibly  the 
motor  or  even  the  final  cause  lay  implicit  in  the  reasonings 
of  the  old  philosophers.  Elsewhere  Aristotle  says:  "  The 
ancient  Nature-Philosophers  .  .  .  did  not  see  that  the 
causes  were  numerous,  but  only  saw  the  material  and  effi- 
cient, and  did  not  distinguish  even  these,  while  they  made 
no  inquiry  at  all  into  the  formal  and  final  causes."  De 
Gen.  An.,  V.  i.  (778  b.) 

40.  All  of  these  passages  are  from  De  Partibus  Ani- 
malium, I.  I.  (640  b.  ff.) 

41.  De  Gen.  An.,  I.  i.  (71S  b.) 

42.  The  "  heterogeneous  "  parts;  see  Ante.  It  is  Bichat's 
( 1 771-1802)  distinction  between  tissues  and  organs. 

43.  De  Partibus  Animalium,  II.  11.  (646  b.) 

44.  De  Partibus  Animalium,  IV.  10.  (687  a.) 

45.  De  Gen.  An.,  V.  i.  (778  a.)  and  the  notes  of  the 
translator. 

46.  De  Gen.  An.,  II.  3.  (736  a.)  and  see  the  trans- 
lator's note  to  the  passage. 

47.  This  very  attractive  generalization  is  not  to  be 
pressed  too   far. 

48.  Hist.  An.,  VIII.  I.  (588  a.) 

49.  De  Gen.  An.,  I.  18.  Darwin  held  to  a  theory  of 
pangenesis,  but  it  is  not  commonly  accepted. 

50.  Hist.  An.,  VIII.  2.  (589  b.) 

51.  Hist.  An.,  VIII.  12.  (596  b.) 

52.  Collected  in  E.  H.  F.  Meyer's  Geschichte  der 
Botanik,  Konigsberg,  1854-57;  I.  88  ff. 

53.  Sir  Arthur  Hort,  see  n.  24. 

S4-    Of  which  Meyer,  o.c,  gives  a  synopsis,  I.  pp.  167  ff. 

55.  Julius  von  Sachs,  History  of  Botany,  1 530-1860, 
Translation  by  H.  E.  F.  Gamsey,  Oxford.  1890;  examples, 
pp.  17,  42,  376,  450. 

56.  Enquiry,  I.  i.  9. 

57.  Ibid.,  I.  1.4.    The  last  clause  in  the  last  sentence  is 

[  149] 


NOTES    AND     BIBLIOGRAPHY 


NOTES     AND     BIBLIOGRAPHY 


not  translated  thus  by  Hort.  Singer's  rendering  seemed  to 
me  more  probable,  —  though  I  have  made  a  slight  modifi- 
cation at  the  end.  For  it  seemed  to  me  less  question- 
begging  to  translate  tuv  fxeWovTOJv  as  "  what  they  are 
about  to  be, "  rather  than  "  what  they  are  becoming,"  as 
Singer  does. 

58.  Ibid.,  I.  I.  II. 

59.  Ibid.,  III.  8.  I ;  Cf.  II.  6.  6.  Sometimes  what  the 
ancients  took  for  "  male  "  and  "  female  "  were  really  dif- 
ferent species. 

60.  Ibid.,  II.  8.  4. 

6i.  Charles  Singer,  "Greek  Biology  and  its  Relation 
to  the  Rise  of  Modern  Biology,"  in  Singer's  Studies  in  the 
History  and  Method  of  Science,  Oxford,   192 1;  Vol.  II. 

p.  98. 

62.  For  the  next  few  pages  I  have  followed,  in  the 
main:  Theodor  Meyer-Steineg,  Geschichte  der  Medizin, 
Jena,  192 1;  Max  Neuburger,  History  of  Medicine,  Trans- 
lation by  Ernest  Playfair,  Oxford,  1910;  Vol.  I.;  Sir  T. 
Clifford  Allbutt,  Greek  Medicine  in  Rome,  London,  192 1. 

63.  Soporific  or  some  kind  of  anesthetic  expedients 
seem  to  have  been  used  commonly,  to  deaden  pain. 

64.  Sir  Clifford  Allbutt  does  not  eliminate  this  con- 
fusion, properly  enough,  from  his  interesting  discussion  of 
the  matter,  in  chapter  X  of  his  Greek  Medicine  in 
Rome,  o.c. 

65.  Cf.  III.  I.  with  III.  2.  of  Galen;  On  the  Natural 
Faculties,  with  an  English  Translation  by  Arthur  John 
Brock,  in  The  Loeb  Classical  Library,  New  York,  1916. 

66.  F.  H.  Garrison,  Introduction  to  the  History  of 
Medicine,  Philadelphia,  1921,3  p.  105. 

67.  Galen,  On  the  Natural  Faculties,  o.c,  n.  65. 

68.  Brock,  in  his  Introduction,  p.  XXX,  compares  him 
with  Bergson. 

69.  Why  not  protoplasmic? 

70.  On    the    Natural    Faculties,    Brock's    Translation, 

o.c,  I.  5. 

71.  On  The  Natural  Faculties,  Brock's  Translation,  o.c, 
I.  5-8,  with  an  occasional  verbal  alteration. 


72.  I.  e.  ducts,  etc.,  the  morphological  factors  empha- 
sized by  Erasistratus. 

73.  Brock's  Translation. 

74.  Quoted  in  the  Article  on  Sydenham,  in  the  Dic- 
tionary of  National  Biography.  I  have,  in  these  last  pages, 
chiefly  followed.  Meyer-Steineg  and  Sudhoff,  Geschichte 
der  Medizin  im  Uberblick  mit  Abbildungen,  Jena,  192 1. 


I 


[150] 


[151] 


2>nr  SDebt  to  (Bttttt  anti  TSiomt 


AUTHORS  AND  TITLES 


f 


AUTHORS  AND  TITLES 


I. 

2. 

3B. 

4- 

5- 
6. 

7- 

8. 
9 

lOA. 
lOB. 

II. 

12. 

13- 
14. 

15- 

16. 

17- 
18. 
19. 

20. 

21. 
22. 

23- 


Homer.    John    A.    Scott,  Northwestern    University. 

Sappho.    David    M.    Robinson,    The   Johns    Hopkins 

University. 

Euripides.    F.  L.  Lucas,  King's  College,  Cambridge. 

Aeschylus  and  Sophocles.    J.  T.  Sheppard,  King's 

College,  Cambridge. 

Aristophanes.     Louis  E.  Lord,  Oberlin  College. 

Demosthenes.    Charles  D.  Adams,  Dartmouth  College. 

Aristotle  's  Poetics.    Lane  Cooper,  Cornell  University. 

Greek   Historians.    Alfred   E.   Zimmern,    University 

of  Wales. 

LuciAN.     Francis    G.    Allinson,    Brown    University. 

Plautus    and    Terence.     Charles   Knapp,   Barnard 

College,    Columbia    University. 

Cicero.    John  C.  Rolfe,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

Cicero      as      Philosopher.      Nelson    G.    McCrea, 

Columbia  University. 

Catullus.    Karl  P.  Harrington,  Wesley  an  University. 

Lucretius       and       Epicureanism.    George    Depue 

Hadzsits,    University   of  Pennsylvania. 

Ovid.     Edward   K.   Rand,   Harvard   University. 

Horace.     Grant  Showerman,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

Virgil.    John  William  Mackail,  Bdliol  College,  Oxford. 

Seneca.    Richard  Mott  Gummere,  The  William  Penn 

Charter  Sclwol. 

Roman  Historians.    G.  Ferrero,  Florence. 

Martial.     Paul    Nixon,    Bo-ivdoin   College. 

Platonism.    Alfred    Edward    Taylor,    St.    Andrew's 

University. 

Aristotelianism.    John  L.  Stocks,  St.  John's  CoUege, 

Oxford. 

Stoicism.    Robert  Mark  Wenley,  Univarsity  of  Michigan. 

Language  and  Philology.    Roland  G.  Kent,  University 

of  Pennsyhania. 

Rhetoric   and   Literary   Criticism. 


24.  Greek    Religion.    Walter   W.    Hyde,    University   of 
Pennsylvania. 

25.  Roman  Religion.    Gordon  J.  Laing,  McGill  University, 


AUTHORS    AND     TITLES 


26.  Mythologies.    Jane  Ellen  Harrison,  Newnham  Collegef 
Cambridge. 

27.  Theories  Regarding  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 
Clifford  H.   Moore,  Harvard  University. 

28.  Stage   Antiquities.    James   T.   Allen,    University  of 
California. 

29.  Greek    Politics.    Ernest     Barker,    King's    College^ 
University   of  London. 

30.  Roman    Politics.     Frank    Frost    Abbott,    Princeton 
University. 

31.  Roman   Law.    Roscoe    Pound,    Harvard   Law   School. 

32.  Economics  and  Society.     M.  T.  Rostovtzeff,  University 
of  Wisconsin. 

7,2,'    Military  and  Maritime  Antiquities.    E.  S.  McCart- 
ney, Northwestern  University. 

34.  The  Greek  Fathers.      Roy  J.  Deferrari,  The  Catho^ 
lie  University  of  America, 

35.  Biology      and      Medicine.    Henry  Osbom  Taylor, 
New  York. 

36.  Mathematics.    David  Eugene  Smith,  Teachers'  College, 
Columbia  University. 

37.  Love  of  Nature.    H.  R.  Fairclough,  Leland  Stanford 
Junior  University. 

38.  Astronomy  and  Astrology.    Franz  Cumont,  Brussels. 

39.  The  Fine  Arts.    Arthur  Fairbanks,  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  Boston. 

40.  Architecture.    Alfred  M.  Brooks,  Swarthmore  College, 

41.  Engineering.    Alexander   P.   Gest,   Philadelphia. 

42.  Greek  Private  Life,  Its  Survivals.    Charles  Burton 
Gulick,  Harvard  University. 

43.  Roman  Private  Life,  Its  Survivals.    Walton  B.  Mc- 
Daniel,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

44.  Folk  Lore.    Csunphell  Bonner,  University  of  Michigan. 

45.  Greek  and  Roman  Education. 

46.  Christian  Latin  Writers.   Andrew  F.  West,  Princeton 
University. 

47.  Roman  Poetry  and  Its  Influence  upon  European 
Culture.     Paul  Shorey,  University  of  Chicago. 

48.  Psychology. 

49.  Music. 

50.  Ancient  and  Modern  Rome.    Rodolfo  Lanciani,  Rome. 


884 
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